I summoned my valet. "Who sent this?" I demanded.
"Madame the Contessa Romani," replied Vincenzo with discreet gravity. "There is a card attached, if the eccelenza will be pleased to look."
I did look. It was my wife's visiting-card, and on it was written in her own delicate penmanship-"To remind the conte of his promised visit to-morrow."
A sudden anger possessed me. I crumpled up the dainty glossy bit of pasteboard and flung it aside. The mingled odors of the fruit and flowers offended my senses.
"I care nothing for these trifles," I said, addressing Vincenzo almost impatiently. "Take them to the little daughter of the hotel-keeper; she is a child, she will appreciate them. Take them away at once."
Obediently Vincenzo lifted the basket and bore it out of the room. I was relieved when its fragrance and color had vanished. I, to receive as a gift, the product of my own garden! Half vexed, half sore at heart, I threw myself into an easychair--anon I laughed aloud! So! Madame commences the game early, I thought. Already paying these marked attentions to a man she knows nothing of beyond that he is reported to be fabulously wealthy. Gold, gold forever! What will it not do! It will bring the proud to their knees, it will force the obstinate to servile compliance, it will conquer aversion and prejudice. The world is a slave to its yellow glitter, and the love of woman, that perishable article of commerce, is ever at its command. Would you obtain a kiss from a pair of ripe-red lips that seem the very abode of honeyed sweetness? Pay for it then with a lustrous diamond; the larger the gem the longer the kiss! The more diamonds you give, the more caresses you will get. The jeunesse doree who ruin themselves and their ancestral homes for the sake of the newest and prettiest female puppet on the stage know this well enough. I smiled bitterly as I thought of the languid witching look my wife had given me when she said, "You do not seem to be old!" I knew the meaning of her eyes; I had not studied their liquid lights and shadows so long for nothing. My road to revenge was a straight and perfectly smooth line--almost too smooth. I could have wished for some difficulty, some obstruction; but there was none--absolutely none. The traitors walked deliberately into the trap set for them. Over and over again I asked myself quietly and in cold blood--was there any reason why I should have pity on them? Had they shown one redeeming point in their characters? Was there any nobleness, any honesty, any real sterling good quality in either of them to justify my consideration? And always the answer came, NO! Hollow to the heart's core, hypocrites both, liars both--even the guilty passion they cherished for one another had no real earnestness in it save the pursuit of present pleasure; for she, Nina, in that fatal interview in the avenue where I had been a tortured listener, had hinted at the possibility of tiring of her lover, and HE had frankly declared to me that very day that it was absurd to suppose a man could be true to one woman all his life. In brief, they deserved their approaching fate. Such men as Guido and such women as my wife, are, I know, common enough in all classes of society, but they are not the less pernicious animals, meriting extermination as much, if not more, than the less harmful beasts of prey. The poor beasts at any rate tell no lies, and after death their skins are of some value; but who shall measure the mischief done by a false tongue--and of what use is the corpse of a liar save to infect the air with pestilence? I used to wonder at the superiority of men over the rest of the animal creation, but I see now that it is chiefly gained by excess of selfish cunning. The bulky, good-natured, ignorant lion who has only one honest way of defending himself, namely with tooth and claw, is no match for the jumping two-legged little rascal who hides himself behind a bush and fires a gun aimed direct at the bigger brute's heart. Yet the lion's mode of battle is the braver of the two, and the cannons, torpedoes and other implements of modern warfare are proofs of man's cowardice and cruelty as much as they are of his diabolical ingenuity. Calmly comparing the ordinary lives of men and beasts--judging them by their abstract virtues merely--I am inclined to think the beasts the more respectable of the two!