“Zita! Try to understand what I am saying to you. I do not love you; and if I did I would not come away with you. I have my work in Italy, and my comrades——”
“And someone else that you love better than me!” she cried out fiercely. “Oh, I could kill you! It is not your comrades you care about; it's—— I know who it is!”
“Hush!” he said quietly. “You are excited and imagining things that are not true.”
“You suppose I am thinking of Signora Bolla? I'm not so easily duped! You only talk politics with her; you care no more for her than you do for me. It's that Cardinal!”
The Gadfly started as if he had been shot.
“Cardinal?” he repeated mechanically.
“Cardinal Montanelli, that came here preaching in the autumn. Do you think I didn't see your face when his carriage passed? You were as white as my pocket-handkerchief! Why, you're shaking like a leaf now because I mentioned his name!”
He stood up.
“You don't know what you are talking about,” he said very slowly and softly. “I—hate the Cardinal. He is the worst enemy I have.”
“Enemy or no, you love him better than you love anyone else in the world. Look me in the face and say that is not true, if you can!”