When the Gadfly, strongly guarded, entered the room where Montanelli was writing at a table covered with papers, a sudden recollection came over him, of a hot midsummer afternoon when he had sat turning over manuscript sermons in a study much like this. The shutters had been closed, as they were here, to keep out the heat, and a fruitseller's voice outside had called: “Fragola! Fragola!”
He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes and set his mouth in a smile.
Montanelli looked up from his papers.
“You can wait in the hall,” he said to the guards.
“May it please Your Eminence,” began the sergeant, in a lowered voice and with evident nervousness, “the colonel thinks that this prisoner is dangerous and that it would be better———”
A sudden flash came into Montanelli's eyes.
“You can wait in the hall,” he repeated quietly; and the sergeant, saluting and stammering excuses with a frightened face, left the room with his men.
“Sit down, please,” said the Cardinal, when the door was shut. The Gadfly obeyed in silence.
“Signor Rivarez,” Montanelli began after a pause, “I wish to ask you a few questions, and shall be very much obliged to you if you will answer them.”
The Gadfly smiled. “My ch-ch-chief occupation at p-p-present is to be asked questions.”