“No; nor do I forget there is no obligation for you to remember them.”
“That means?”
Sophia raised her eyelids, and flashed a look on Agostini which astonished him.
“It means that if for my own safety your disappearance were necessary, your life would be very cheap.”
“You threaten me with death?”
“Fool! You are well aware that if you breathed a single word calculated to throw light on our enterprises, there are at least five persons who would kill you at once.”
“But the affairs of the association are not your affairs, and you know that I am acquainted with the ones as well as with the others.”
“Listen, Cesare; people like ourselves ought to be agreed in everything we do, if we wish to run no risk of ruin. The slightest discord places us at the mercy of our enemies. We must serve one another with the greatest self-sacrifice. Every selfish demand detracts from the force necessary to common success.”
“Ah! Do you pretend to impose an apathetic indifference on people who live with an intensity a hundred times greater than the rest of mankind? You forget that I love you, and I will submit to no rivalry, Sophia.”
“And how will you compel me to obey your wishes, may I ask?”