“That must have been a pleasant experience.”
“Oh, not so bad! One must take the rough with the smooth, of course; but it's a splendid life on the whole. Serpent-catching, for instance——”
He rattled on, telling anecdote after anecdote; now of the Argentine war, now of the Brazilian expedition, now of hunting feats and adventures with savages or wild beasts. Galli, with the delight of a child hearing a fairy story, kept interrupting every moment to ask questions. He was of the impressionable Neapolitan temperament and loved everything sensational. Gemma took some knitting from her basket and listened silently, with busy fingers and downcast eyes. Martini frowned and fidgeted. The manner in which the anecdotes were told seemed to him boastful and self-conscious; and, notwithstanding his unwilling admiration for a man who could endure physical pain with the amazing fortitude which he had seen the week before, he genuinely disliked the Gadfly and all his works and ways.
“It must have been a glorious life!” sighed Galli with naive envy. “I wonder you ever made up your mind to leave Brazil. Other countries must seem so flat after it!”
“I think I was happiest in Peru and Ecuador,” said the Gadfly. “That really is a magnificent tract of country. Of course it is very hot, especially the coast district of Ecuador, and one has to rough it a bit; but the scenery is superb beyond imagination.”
“I believe,” said Galli, “the perfect freedom of life in a barbarous country would attract me more than any scenery. A man must feel his personal, human dignity as he can never feel it in our crowded towns.”
“Yes,” the Gadfly answered; “that is——”
Gemma raised her eyes from her knitting and looked at him. He flushed suddenly scarlet and broke off. There was a little pause.
“Surely it is not come on again?” asked Galli anxiously.
“Oh, nothing to speak of, thanks to your s-s-soothing application that I b-b-blasphemed against. Are you going already, Martini?”