"Come! Don't
listen to him."
Orsi released her grasp.
"I believe you are at the Grand Hotel?" he addressed the other man.
"Until I hear from you."
"To-morrow----"
All the heat had apparently evaporated from their words; they spoke
with a perfunctory politeness. Cesare Orsi said:
"I will order the launch."
In a few minutes the palpitations of the steam died in the direction of
Naples.
VII
Lavinia followed her husband to their rooms, where he sat smoking one
of his long black cigars. He was pale; his brow was wet and his collar
wilted. She stood beside him and he patted her arm.
"Everything is in order," he assured her.
A species of blundering tenderness for him possessed her; an unexpected
throb of her being startled and robbed her of words. He mistook her
continued silence.
"All I have is yours," he explained; "it is your right. I can see now
that--that my money was all I had to offer you. The only thing of value
I possess. I should have realized that a girl, charming like yourself,
couldn't care for a mound of fat." Her tenderness rose till it choked
in her throat, blurred what she had to say.
"Cesare," she told him, "Gheta was right; at one time I was in love
with Mochales." He turned with a startled exclamation; but she silenced
him. "He was, it seemed, all that a girl might admire--dark and
mysterious and handsome. He was romantic. I demanded nothing else then;
now something has happened that I don't altogether understand, but it
has changed everything for me.
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