The Gadfly did not answer. He was staring out of the window and appeared not to have heard what had been said.
“Signor Rivarez!” said Gemma. She was the only person sitting near to him, and as he remained silent she bent forward and touched him on the arm. He slowly turned his face to her, and she started as she saw its fixed and awful immobility. For a moment it was like the face of a corpse; then the lips moved in a strange, lifeless way.
“Yes,” he whispered; “a variety show.”
Her first instinct was to shield him from the curiosity of the others. Without understanding what was the matter with him, she realized that some frightful fancy or hallucination had seized upon him, and that, for the moment, he was at its mercy, body and soul. She rose quickly and, standing between him and the company, threw the window open as if to look out. No one but herself had seen his face.
In the street a travelling circus was passing, with mountebanks on donkeys and harlequins in parti-coloured dresses. The crowd of holiday masqueraders, laughing and shoving, was exchanging jests and showers of paper ribbon with the clowns and flinging little bags of sugar-plums to the columbine, who sat in her car, tricked out in tinsel and feathers, with artificial curls on her forehead and an artificial smile on her painted lips. Behind the car came a motley string of figures—street Arabs, beggars, clowns turning somersaults, and costermongers hawking their wares. They were jostling, pelting, and applauding a figure which at first Gemma could not see for the pushing and swaying of the crowd. The next moment, however, she saw plainly what it was—a hunchback, dwarfish and ugly, grotesquely attired in a fool's dress, with paper cap and bells. He evidently belonged to the strolling company, and was amusing the crowd with hideous grimaces and contortions.
“What is going on out there?” asked Riccardo, approaching the window. “You seem very much interested.”
He was a little surprised at their keeping the whole committee waiting to look at a strolling company of mountebanks. Gemma turned round.
“It is nothing interesting,” she said; “only a variety show; but they made such a noise that I thought it must be something else.”
She was standing with one hand upon the window-sill, and suddenly felt the Gadfly's cold fingers press the hand with a passionate clasp. “Thank you!” he whispered softly; and then, closing the window, sat down again upon the sill.
“I'm afraid,” he said in his airy manner, “that I have interrupted you, gentlemen. I was l-looking at the variety show; it is s-such a p-pretty sight.”