He raised the thing to his cheek.
“Florence,” he whispered, his dark eyes flashing with a sudden excitement. “Yes, she left the theater with her make-up on and in the costume of the ‘Dead Flower.’ And in the lobby screaming ... when I saw her first she had changed. There was no make-up on her face—and her clothes were changed. Thirty-five minutes in which to ... change. She lied ... she lied.”
He sat smiling enigmatically at the purse. The subtle and exultant voice that had risen in him before the locked door was again speaking among his thoughts:
“Francesca mia, I adore you. Beautiful, cruel and silent one ... murderess! Patricide!”
For a strange moment his heart seemed to fling itself blissfully toward the image of a woman smiling grimly, dagger in hand, in the opened doorway of his room. His eyes stared at blankness while an inner vision beheld her—Florence in a trailing robe ... Florence with her black hair smoothed and bound with a gold band, with a dagger lifted and a dark smile wavering over the cruel face....
He sprang to his feet, a cry in his throat. The doorway was empty. He stood shuddering before it, afraid to look beyond into the darkened hall, cowering before the shadow of a chair that stretched against the wall. Something had passed—a shadow had passed. With hands grown moist, he walked stiffly forward and closed out the empty space. He was alone in the room.
He stood still listening, as if there were noises to overhear. His eyes shifted about the vacancy of the room. They turned furtively from the unoccupied chairs to the empty bed.
“Fear,” he murmured. “It traps me ... a disease....”
In the fully lighted room De Medici flung himself with a sob on the bed.