“My zeal was evidently misplaced and I regret its excess.”
Olive was speechless; her eyes were dimmed, her throat ached with tears. How easily he believed the worst—this man who had been her friend. She rose to go, but Filippo laid a detaining hand upon her arm.
“To-morrow.” He had already told her where and when to meet him, and had given her two keys.
“Are you sure you want me?” she said hurriedly. “There are so many women in your life. You remind me of the South American Republic that made—and shot—seventeen presidents in six months.”
He laughed. “Do I? You remind me of an eel, or a little grey mouse trying to get out of a trap. There is no way out, my dear, unless, of course, you want me to kill your Frenchman. I am a good shot.”
“I will come.”
She looked for pink as she went out of the room, and saw a very pretty woman in rose-coloured tulle sitting alone and near the door.
She had given ungrudgingly, unfaltering, and there was no shadow of regret in her eyes; it was nothing to her that he should care for this other little body, for bare white shoulders and a fluff of yellow hair. He had never been more to her than a means to an end, and he was to be that now.
She took a tram from the Piazza del Popolo to the Rotonda. There was a large ironmonger’s shop at the corner; she remembered having noticed it before. She went in and asked to look at some of the pistols they had in the window. Several were brought out for her to see, and she chose a small one. The young man who served her showed her how to load it and pull the trigger. He wrapped it in brown paper and made a loop in the string for her to carry it by. She thanked him.
The bells of all the churches were ringing the Ave Maria when she left the Hotel de Russie an hour ago, and it was dark when she reached her own room. The stars were bright, shining through a rift of clouds that hid the crescent moon. Olive laid the awkwardly-shaped parcel she carried down upon the table while she lit her candle. Then she got her scissors and cut the string. This was the key of a door through which she must pass. Death was the way out.