The Land of Cockayne: A Novel

by Matilde Serao

'Good-bye!'

She rose too. She understood that her father first, then she, had exhausted the lion's patience. Feebly she asked:

'You will come to-morrow?'

'No, I will not.'

'Some other day, then?'

'No.'

'Some other day when you are not busy?'

'No.'

The three 'No's' were said very decidedly. Bianca Maria gave a shiver. He was going away; he would never come back. He was right. He was a strong, serious man, devoted to his work—a work of love and saving others. He was getting involved in a falling away from reason and dignity in the society of people he was helping and being friendly to, and as a return he had been slighted and insulted; and now a charlatan, a cheat, was preferred to him. He was right to go away, never to come back. But she felt lost, a prey to insanity, if she let him go. Looking beseechingly at him, she implored him: