Andrea started violently; the blood rushed to his head and drew a veil of mist before his eyes, and there was a roar in his ears as if he were going to be seized with vertigo. In the midst of the fever of excitement into which he had been thrown by these books, these pictures, the maddening discourses of his host, a furious instinct rose out of the blind depths of his being, the same brutal impetus which he had already experienced on the race-course after his victory over Rutolo amid the acrid exhalations of his steaming horse. The phantasm of a crime of love tempted and beckoned to him: to kill this man, take the woman by force, wreak his brutal will upon her, and then kill himself. But it passed rapidly as it had come.
'No, I am not alone,' answered the husband, without opening the door. 'In a few minutes I shall have the pleasure of bringing Count Sperelli to you—he is here with me.'
He replaced the book in the book-case, closed the portfolio and carried it back into the next room.
Andrea would have given all he possessed not to have to undergo the ordeal that awaited him, and yet it attracted him strangely. Once more, he raised his eyes to the crimson wall and the dark frame out of which Elena's pallid face looked forth, that face with the haunting eyes and the sibylline mouth. A penetrating and continuous fascination emanated from that imperious image. That strange pallor dominated tragically the whole crimson gloom of the apartment. And once again he felt that his miserable passion was incurable.
'Will you come into the drawing-room?' asked the husband, reappearing in the doorway perfectly calm and composed. 'Then, you will design those clasps for me?'
'I will try,' answered Andrea.
He was quite unable to control his inward agitation. Elena looked at him with a provocative smile.
'What were you doing in there?' she asked him, still smiling in the same manner.
'Your husband was showing me some unique curiosities.'
'Ah!'