"Perhaps he intended to--and then perhaps...."
David Rossi put his hand to his brow as if in pain and perplexity, and
began again to walk backward and forward.
A screamer in the piazza below cried "Trib-un-a!" and Bruno said: "That's early! What's up, I wonder? I'll go down and get a paper."
Darkness had by this time re-invaded the sky, and the stars looked down
from their broad dome, clear, sweet, white, and serene, putting to shame
by their immortal solemnity the poor little mimes, the paltry
puppet-shows of the human jackstraws who had just been worshipping at
their self-made shrine.
As David Rossi returned to the house, Elena, who was undressing the boy,
saw a haggard look in his eyes, but Bruno, who was reading his evening
journal, saw nothing, and cried out: "Helloa! Listen to this, sir. It's Olga. She's got a pen, I can tell
you. 'Madame de Pompadour. Hitherto we have had the pleasure of having
Madame ----, whose pressure on the State and on Italy's wise counsellors
was only incidental, but now that the fates have given us a Madame
Pompadour....' Then there's a leading article on your speech in the
piazza. Praises you up to the skies. Look! 'Thank God we have men like
the Honourable Rossi, who at the risk of....'"
But with a clouded brow David Rossi turned away from him and passed into
the sitting-room, and Bruno looked around in blank bewilderment.
"Shall you want the lamp, sir?" said Elena.
"Not yet, thank you," he answered through the open door.
The wood fire was glowing on the hearth, and in the acute state of his
nerves he shuddered involuntarily as its reflection in the window
opposite looked back at him like a fiery eye. He opened the case of the
phonograph, which had been returned to its place on the piano, and then
from a drawer in the bureau he took a small cardboard box. The wood in
the fire flickered at that moment and started some ghastly shadows on
the ceiling, but he drew a cylinder from the box and slid it on to the
barrel of the phonograph. Then he stepped to the door, shut and locked
it.
VII
"Well!" said Bruno. "If that isn't enough to make a man feel as small as
a sardine!"
There was only one thing to do, but to conceal the nature of it Bruno
flourished the newspaper and said: "Elena, I must go down to the lodge and read these articles to your
father. Poor Donna Roma, she'll have to fly, I'm afraid. Bye-bye,
Garibaldi-Mazzini! Early to bed, early to rise, and time enough to grow
old, you know!... As for Mr. Rossi, he might be a sinner and a criminal
instead of the hero of the hour! It licks me to little bits." And Bruno
carried his dark mystery down to the café to see if it might be
dispelled by a litre of autumnal light from sunny vineyards.