“I don’t know. He didn’t look happy.... What’s the use of wanting me to explain to you what I can’t explain to myself?”
The silence between them grew increasingly painful; their words broke it by fits and starts, but each time it closed round them again, heavier, deeper; and through it, from the big hall of the hotel below, there came floating up to them snatches of vulgar Neapolitan music. Julius was picking at a spot of candle grease on the table-cloth with his little finger-nail, which he kept very long and pointed. He suddenly noticed that this exquisite nail of his was broken. There was a tear right across it which spoiled the beautiful pinkness of its polished surface. How could he have done it? And how came he not to have noticed it before? In any case, the damage was beyond repair. There was nothing left for Julius to do but to cut it. His vexation was extreme, for he took great care of his hands and was particularly attached to this nail, which he had been long cultivating, and which enhanced and at the same time drew attention to the elegance of his finger. The scissors were in his dressing-table drawer and he half rose to get them, but he would have had to pass in front of Lafcadio; with his usual tact he put off the delicate operation till later.
“And what do you mean to do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Give myself up, perhaps. I shall take the night to think it over.”
Julius let his arm drop beside his arm-chair, he gazed at Lafcadio for a moment or two and then in a tone of utter discouragement sighed out:
“And to think that I was beginning to care for you!”
It was said with no unkind intention. Lafcadio could have no doubt of that; but for all their unconsciousness the words were none the less cruel and they struck at his very heart. He raised his head and stiffened himself against the sudden pang of anguish that stabbed him. He looked at Julius. “Did I really feel almost like his brother only yesterday?” thought he. His eyes wandered over the room where such a short time ago he had been able to talk so gaily, in spite of his crime; the scent bottle was still on the table, almost empty....
“Come, Lafcadio,” went on Julius, “your situation doesn’t seem to me altogether hopeless. The presumed author of the crime....”
“Yes, I know; he has been arrested,” interrupted Lafcadio dryly. “Are you going to advise me to allow an innocent man to be condemned in my place?”
“Innocent? He has just murdered a woman—you knew her too.”