She flew at him again, her face blanched, her eyes blazing, a new note in her voice.

"Have a care yourself!" she shrieked. "Murderer! a.s.sa.s.sin! Help! Help!

Murder!"

"Stop that, you fool!" he snarled, but she cried the louder, and he dropped the children to choke her cries.

The white scared faces of Nando and a.s.sunta peering in at the door brought him to his senses and he flung the girl off.

"You pack of fools!" he growled, "take that hysterical idiot away and leave this room! How dare you come here without my orders?"

But a.s.sunta was already by Carolina's side, bending over the children, whose loud sobbing filled the room.

"Take your silly face from that door, Nando! _Dio mi strabenedica_ if I don't throw the whole crew of you into the street! Am I to have no peace in my own home?"

A sound of steps was heard in the pa.s.sage; Nando felt a hand on his shoulder thrusting him aside, and Enrico Ferrati entered, glancing about him in astonishment at the scene before him.

"My G.o.d, Egidio! What does this mean? What has happened to the children?"

Carolina raised her tear-stained face.

"Ah, Signor Dottore! The good G.o.d himself has sent you! Look at these poor innocents, murdered by their father!"

He was kneeling beside them in an instant, examining the welts and cuts on their little necks and hands, feeling them cautiously over--fortunately no bones were broken.

"Take them to their room, my good girl, undress them and put them to bed. I shall come presently--you can put some compresses on these bruises, and wash the cuts with the solution in the big green bottle on the Signora's dressing table. Go, Mimmo caro, go, Beppino mio, Zio Rico is here and will come to you. There now, don't cry! There is nothing to be afraid of, it is all over!"

Carolina took Mimmo in her arms and staggering a little under his weight, led the way, a.s.sunta following with Beppino.

"Go also, my friend," said the Doctor to Nando, "I shall ring if you are wanted."

Nando slunk off in his turn, casting many curious backward glances.

Ferrati waited till the last footstep had died away then he raised his eyes from the foil he had picked up and was fingering.

"And now will you tell me what all this means, Egidio?" he asked quietly.

Valentini shrugged his shoulders sulkily.

"I was merely giving the children a little richly deserved punishment."

"Punishment! They are covered with cuts and welts and bruises! Thank Heaven they are still wearing their thick winter clothes--You might have killed them, Egidio, you would have, if you had not been stopped in time. As it is, it is a miracle that they are not maimed for life! Are you mad to think of touching the tender body of a child with a thing like this?" He bent the flexible blade of the foil, "I tell you that if their clothes had not protected them, you would have cut the flesh of those babies to ribbons!"

"But look, Rico," Valentini burst forth pa.s.sionately, "look what they have done! I come in here and I find they have ruined my work, the picture that was to make my reputation--and that I shall have no chance to do again, if I could, for she has gone away!"

He wheeled the easel about, and Ferrati gazed aghast on the havoc wrought.

"My G.o.d, Egidio," he exclaimed, "this is awful!"

"And yet you blame me for punishing--" he said bitterly, but Ferrati interrupted him.

"You had provocation, I will admit; this is a terrible disappointment.

But you are a man, Egidio, and to allow your rage to get the better of you to the extent that you would have murdered--yes, _murdered_ is the word--those innocent children--"

"Innocent!"

"Yes, certainly, innocent. Can you suppose for a minute that a child of that age would be capable of a deliberate act of malice such as this?

Think man, think how easily you might have killed them, and how would you have met your wife with their blood on your hands?"

"Oh, Ragna!" said Egidio sneeringly.

"Where is she?"

"I suppose she is gadding about somewhere, as usual."

Valentini looked at him keenly.

"That is another thing, in fact it was that I was coming to you about when I heard Carolina's screams of 'murder'. You are not treating your wife as you should, Egidio, and as I was partly responsible for the marriage, I cannot stand aside and let things go on as they have been doing. As your friend, as the friend of both of you, I feel that I can be silent no longer."

"So she has been to you with her complaints!"

"She has done nothing of the sort; Ragna is not the woman to complain of her husband to anyone--you should know your wife better by this time."

He paused, but Valentini his eyes sulkily fixed on the carpet, merely shrugged his shoulders.

"No, I speak only of what Virginia and I have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. You speak slightingly to Ragna and of her, in public; you humiliate her and make her life unbearable. What you say and do in private I have no means of knowing, but I can see that your wife both fears and hates you."

"She has an impossible character," said Egidio petulantly, like a child taken to task. Ferrati seemed always to have this mysterious power of domination over him, the result, perhaps, of the man's clear-eyed honesty.

"She is pretentious, rebellious against my authority; she is ungrateful for all I have done for her, she lies; I tell you she is impossible."

"Let us talk this over," said Ferrati glad to have at last something definite to take hold of. "I will take you up point by point, and we will find out how much foundation there is for what you say. I believe it is all a misunderstanding."

"It is not, I can't be deceived about my own wife, I know her better than she knows herself."

"There is where you are wrong. Your wife is not perfect--no human being is, but you wilfully blind yourself to her good qualities and exaggerate her defects. Now take this, you call her pretentious," he flung his arms round Valentini's shoulders and forced him to pace slowly up and down the room--"I do not think her so. She is a beautiful woman, she is clever--I have read her publications and they are excellent,--she may have a little weakness for t.i.tled friends."

"She fills my house with knaves and fools. She continues to receive people I have forbidden her to see, I won't have it! She--"

"Sh! let me continue, when I have finished you shall say what you have to say. I repeat, you call her pretentious, my opinion and that of everyone who knows her is that she is modest and una.s.suming. As for her friends--" he wheeled suddenly looking Egidio in the eyes, "what right have you to object to them? Do you suppose your escapades, the way you spend your evenings, to be unknown? This woman, the original of this portrait, what right had you, knowing her for what she is, standing to her in the relation in which you did--what right had you, I say, to bring her here, into the house where your wife lives?"

His voice was like a trumpet-call, and Egidio's eyes fell.

"You say that she rebels against your authority--but if that authority is a tyranny? She is not a child, she is a responsible woman and the day has gone by when a husband's word was law. In virtue of what superior powers do you arrogate to yourself the right to guide and control your wife as though she were a minor child? But if obedience is what you require you must be moderate in your commands, lighten your yoke, fit it to the neck that is to wear it. I don't wonder that Ragna finds your exercise of authority unreasonable. Now for the ingrat.i.tude--in what way is she ungrateful? And after all, my dear friend, why should she be grateful, what more have you done for her than she has done for you?"

Egidio's jaw dropped. "Your marriage was a contract entered into on both sides with full knowledge of the circ.u.mstances. You knew her condition, you knew, for she told you, that she did not love you--you offered her your name and protection in exchange for the advantage of her society.

Well, has she not fulfilled her part of the contract? Has she not been a model wife and mother, faithful, true to you in word and deed? Has she not given you a son of whom any man might be proud? What more could you expect of her? Granted that Mimmo--that his presence in the house must be hard at times, but he is a dear affectionate child, whom no one could help loving--and you knew beforehand what you were undertaking.

Remember, the child was never foisted on you, as seems sometimes to be your conviction. Here are three of your points disposed of--frankly I cannot see that you have a leg to stand on!"

Egidio opened his mouth to protest but closed it again; indeed what could he say without letting his friend see that it was the loss of Ragna's expected fortune, in hopes of which he had married her, that lay at the root of his grievance. He had so often proclaimed his disinterestedness that he could not very well abandon the position; and more than this he feared Ferrati's condemnation and wished to keep his good opinion. Anything he could say would but put himself in a most unflattering light. Seeing he had no answer to make, Ferrati continued.