“No, pretty one,” Chieco answered from the other side. “So much the worse for you if you are bored!”
He sent forth a fiendish whistle, fit to pierce a hole in the door. Jeanne clapped her hands. The piano and the violoncello attacked a solemn andante.
She turned to Selva, who was coming in again after having accompanied his wife into the corridor, in order to tell her to telegraph to Don Clemente. She went towards him with clasped hands, her eyes full of tears.
“Selva,” she murmured in a stifled voice, “you know everything now. I cannot hide my feelings from you. Is there something worse? Tell me the truth.”
Selva took her hands and pressed them in silence, while the violoncello answered for him, bitterly and sadly: “Weep, weep, for there is no fate like thy fate of love and of grief.” He pressed the poor icy hands, unable to speak. He saw clearly di Leynì had not dared to repeat the terrible words to her—“I will come and die in your house.” It was his lot to deal her the first blow.
“My dear,” he said, gently and paternally, “did he not tell you at the Sacro Speco that he would call you to him in a solemn hour? The hour is come, he calls you.”
Jeanne started violently. She did not believe she had heard aright.
“Oh, how is this? No!” she exclaimed.
Then, as Selva continued silent, with the same pity in his eyes, a flash shot through her heart. “Ah!” she cried, and her whole being went out in mute and agonized questioning. Selva pressed her hands still harder, his tightly closed lips twitched, and a suppressed sob wrung his breast. She said never a word, but would have fallen had not his hands upheld her. He supported her, and then led her to a seat,
“At once?” she said. “At once? Is it imminent?”