But when the hour came round at which he had been accustomed to go and see her every day he missed her horribly, and went and shut himself up in his room. It was not a sentimentality, for he was incapable of that weak but delicate infusion of sentiment and water from which the Anglo-Saxon race derives such keen delight. It was more like a sort of physical possession, from which he could not escape, and during which he would have found it hard to be decently civil to Miss Slayback, or indeed to any other woman. At that time his whole mind and senses were filled with Aliandra, as though she had been bodily present in the room, and her handsome head and vital figure rose distinctly in his eyes, till his pulse beat fast in his throat and his lips were dry.
Two days after Aliandra's departure, Tebaldo was in this state, pacing up and down in his room and really struggling against the intense desire to drive instantly to the railway station and follow Aliandra to Sicily. Without a knock the door opened, and Francesco entered.
'What do you want?' asked Tebaldo, almost brutally, as he stopped in his walk.
'What is the matter with you?' enquired the other in some surprise at his brother's tone.
'What do you want, I say?' Tebaldo tapped the floor impatiently with his foot. 'Why do you come here?'
'Really, you seem to be in an extraordinary frame of mind,' observed Francesco. 'I had no intention of disturbing you. I often come to your room—'
'No. You do not come often. Again—what do you want? Money? You generally want that. Take it—there on the table!' He pointed to a little package of the small Italian notes.
Francesco took two or three and put them carefully into his pocket-book. Tebaldo watched him, hating him more than usual for having come at that moment. He hated the back of his neck as Francesco bent down; it looked so smooth and the short hair was so curly just above his collar. He wondered whether Aliandra liked to look at the back of Francesco's neck, and his eyes grew red.
'So Aliandra has gone,' observed Francesco, carelessly, as he returned the purse to his pocket and turned to his brother.
'Have you come here to tell me so?' asked Tebaldo, growing rapidly angry.