"C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether his irreproachable Eminence has any nephews, by the way? Who is it, if I may ask?"

"It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the friend I told you about the other day----"

"Whom you killed?"

She winced in spite of herself. How lightly, how cruelly he used that dreadful word!

"Yes, whom I killed--if he is really dead."

"If?"

She kept her eyes on his face.

"I have sometimes doubted," she said. "The body was never found. He may have run away from home, like you, and gone to South America."

"Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory to carry about with you. I have d-d-done some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent m-more than one man to Hades, perhaps; but if I had it on my conscience that I had sent any l-living thing to South America, I should sleep badly----"

"Then do you believe," she interrupted, coming nearer to him with clasped hands, "that if he were not drowned,--if he had been through your experience instead,--he would never come back and let the past go? Do you believe he would NEVER forget? Remember, it has cost me something, too. Look!"

She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from her forehead. Through the black locks ran a broad white streak.

There was a long silence.

"I think," the Gadfly said slowly, "that the dead are better dead.

Forgetting some things is a difficult matter. And if I were in the place of your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The REVENANT is an ugly spectre."

She put the portrait back into its drawer and locked the desk.

"That is hard doctrine," she said. "And now we will talk about something else."

"I came to have a little business talk with you, if I may--a private one, about a plan that I have in my head."

She drew a chair to the table and sat down. "What do you think of the projected press-law?" he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.

"What I think of it? I think it will not be of much value, but half a loaf is better than no bread."

"Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work on one of the new papers these good folk here are preparing to start?"

"I thought of doing so. There is always a great deal of practical work to be done in starting any paper--printing and circulation arrangements and----"

"How long are you going to waste your mental gifts in that fashion?"

"Why 'waste'?"

"Because it is waste. You know quite well that you have a far better head than most of the men you are working with, and you let them make a regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you. Intellectually you are as far ahead of Gra.s.sini and Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit correcting their proofs like a printer's devil."

"In the first place, I don't spend all my time in correcting proofs; and moreover it seems to me that you exaggerate my mental capacities. They are by no means so brilliant as you think."

"I don't think them brilliant at all," he answered quietly; "but I do think them sound and solid, which is of much more importance. At those dreary committee meetings it is always you who put your finger on the weak spot in everybody's logic."

"You are not fair to the others. Martini, for instance, has a very logical head, and there is no doubt about the capacities of Fabrizi and Lega. Then Gra.s.sini has a sounder knowledge of Italian economic statistics than any official in the country, perhaps."

"Well, that's not saying much; but let us lay them and their capacities aside. The fact remains that you, with such gifts as you possess, might do more important work and fill a more responsible post than at present."

"I am quite satisfied with my position. The work I am doing is not of very much value, perhaps, but we all do what we can."

"Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to play at compliments and modest denials now. Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are using up your brain on work which persons inferior to you could do as well?"

"Since you press me for an answer--yes, to some extent."

"Then why do you let that go on?"

No answer.

"Why do you let it go on?"

"Because--I can't help it."

"Why?"

She looked up reproachfully. "That is unkind--it's not fair to press me so."

"But all the same you are going to tell me why."

"If you must have it, then--because my life has been smashed into pieces, and I have not the energy to start anything REAL, now. I am about fit to be a revolutionary cab-horse, and do the party's drudge-work. At least I do it conscientiously, and it must be done by somebody."

"Certainly it must be done by somebody; but not always by the same person."

"It's about all I'm fit for."

He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably. Presently she raised her head.

"We are returning to the old subject; and this was to be a business talk. It is quite useless, I a.s.sure you, to tell me I might have done all sorts of things. I shall never do them now. But I may be able to help you in thinking out your plan. What is it?"

"You begin by telling me that it is useless for me to suggest anything, and then ask what I want to suggest. My plan requires your help in action, not only in thinking out."

"Let me hear it and then we will discuss."

"Tell me first whether you have heard anything about schemes for a rising in Venetia."

"I have heard of nothing but schemes for risings and Sanfedist plots ever since the amnesty, and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as about the other."

"So am I, in most cases; but I am speaking of really serious preparations for a rising of the whole province against the Austrians.

A good many young fellows in the Papal States--particularly in the Four Legations--are secretly preparing to get across there and join as volunteers. And I hear from my friends in the Romagna----"

"Tell me," she interrupted, "are you quite sure that these friends of yours can be trusted?"

"Quite sure. I know them personally, and have worked with them."