Simply and courageously she ceased to weep, smiled a moment, and replied:
"That is true. I mustn't cry and I mustn't suffer."
CHAPTER XVIII
In the rather gloomy ante-chamber, papered as it was in old green myrtle, and austerely furnished in dark carved wood, the electric light was lit, but shaded by a milky, opaque globe. Francesco, the valet, silent, discreet, correct as usual, helped his master, Lucio Sabini, to take off his coat and freed him of hat, stick, and gloves. Lucio entered with a more than ever tired and bored appearance, with a pale and contracted face. In a quick, colourless voice he asked:
"Are there any letters?"
"One; I put it on the small table."
Lucio Sabini experienced a fleeting hesitation before he entered his own apartment, which was a vast room where the shade of dusk was spreading from three broad windows, two of which looked out on the Lungarno Serristori and the third on to a little square, so that the dark red, green, and maroon of the roomy, deep furniture—arm-chairs and sofas in English leather—merged into the single tint of shadow, and mixed with the mahogany, with an occasional gilt fillet, of the large bookcases and big and little tables. Here and there only the whiteness of a china vase, the gleam of a silver figure, the brightness of a statue of Signa's were to be distinguished. But in spite of the gloom which the dying day at the end of February caused in the room, the oblong envelope of the letter shone clearly.
Slowly he advanced amongst the furniture, making for a large arm-chair behind the writing-table, without lifting his eyes from the whiteness of the letter. He threw himself into the chair, overcome, holding the letter before him without touching it—and some minutes passed thus. Suddenly he gave a start, sat up in his chair, put his hand on a switch, and the electric light was lit in three or four large lamps. Without touching it he saw that which he had guessed in the half-light, Lilian Temple's writing and the envelope without a stamp.
"She is here ... she is here——" he stammered, growing very pale, and speaking aloud.