“What do you know about the Mafia, Zilla?”
With a reluctance that she would not have displayed three months earlier in her career, Zilla gave a child’s account of low brigandage according to her observation of her father and his associates.
“Stop,” said Camperdown at last, when she was describing the disarticulation of the fingers of the “picciotti” so that they might be more expert at stealing, “never mention this again, Zilla. Don’t let a living soul know that you were familiar with such iniquities. The Lord in his mercy has delivered you from them. Now, what do you want me to do about your father?”
The child hung her head. “Tell him to stay, for I do not wish Stargarde to know that I would do so bad a thing. Tears will come in her eyes and she will say: ‘Your father is all that you have; do not send him away as a dog’.”
Camperdown’s thoughts ran back to the day when he had acquainted Zilla with her relationship to Stargarde. The child’s passion of astonishment and joy when she found that she was connected with a woman whom she not only loved and admired, but who was the acme of respectability to her, had not seemed to decrease as time went by. She still loved him more intensely perhaps, but Stargarde was her pride and delight, her own blood relation, and the person in the world for whom she had the most reverence.
“Run home and tell her all about it,” said Camperdown softly. “In the meantime I will look up Frispi,” and patting Zilla’s relieved face, he sent her away.
“Ha, sir, were you addressing me?” said his next patient fiercely, as he hobbled into the room.
Camperdown stared blankly at a choleric old gentleman. “No—was talking aloud as I have a habit of doing. What was I saying?”
“‘Low, stealthy brute,’ sir, you said, ‘and a constant worry to me.’”
Camperdown threw back his head and laughed heartily. “I crave your pardon. I was thinking of a pensioner of my wife’s—a miserable foreigner that I hope has been frightened from the town.”