These others were jealous of her Luigi, or mistook his natural and beautiful politeness to Madame, for overtures and love-making. Could not her Luigi converse with, and smile upon, Madame la Cantinière without setting all their idle and malicious tongues clacking and wagging? As for this Russian wretch, Luigi had given her no more thought than to the dust beneath his feet, and she should go forth into the gutter, in Carmelita's night-shift, before her protector should injure a hair of Luigi's head. She was surprised at Jean Boule, but there--men were all alike, all except her Luigi, that is. How deceived she had been in the kindly old Englishman! ... Fancy coming to her with their cock-and-bull story....
The voice of the man of whom she was thinking broke in upon her reverie.
"What is it, little one? Nothing wrong about Olga?"
"Come in here, Signor Jean Boule," said Carmelita, and led the way into her room.
The Englishman involuntarily glanced round the little sanctum into which no man save Luigi Rivoli had been known to penetrate, and noted the clean tablecloth, the vase with its bunch of krenfell and oleander flowers, the tiny, tidy dressing table, the dilapidated chest of drawers, bright oleographs, cheap rug, crucifix and plaster Madonna--a room still suggestive of Italy.
Turning, Carmelita faced the Englishman and pointed an accusing finger at his face, her great black eyes staring hard and straight into the narrowed blue ones.
"Signor Jean Boule," she said, "you have played a trick on me; you have deceived me; you have killed my faith in Englishmen--yes, in all men--except my Luigi. Why did you bring your mistress to me and beg my help while you knew you meant to kill my husband, because he had found you out? Oh, Monsieur Jean Boule--but you have hurt me so. And I had thought you like a father--so good a man, yes, like a holy padre, a prête. Oh, Signor Jean Boule, are you like those others, loving wickedly, killing wickedly? Are there no good honest men--except my Luigi?..."
The Englishman shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, twisting his képi in his fingers, a picture of embarrassment and misery. How could he persuade this girl that the man was a double-dealing, villainous blackguard? And if he could do so, why should he? Why destroy her faith and her happiness together? If this hound failed in his attempt upon the celibacy of Madame, he would very possibly marry the girl, and, in his own interests, treat her decently. Apparently he had kept her love for years--why should she not go on worshipping the man she believed her lover to be, until the end? But no, it was absurd. How should Luigi Rivoli ever treat a woman decently? Sooner or later he was certain to desert her. What would Carmelita's life be when Luigi Rivoli had the complete disposal of it? Sooner or later she must know what he was, and better sooner than later. A thousand times better that she should find him out now, while there was a risk of his marrying her.... It would be a really good deed to save Carmelita from the clutches of Luigi Rivoli. Stepping toward her, he laid his hands upon the girl's shoulders and gazed into her eyes with that look which he was wont to fasten upon the Grasshopper to soothe and influence him.
"Listen to me, Carmelita," he said, "and be perfectly sure that every word I say to you is absolutely true.... I did not know that Mikhail Kyrilovitch was a woman more than half an hour before you did. I only knew it when she rushed to me for protection from Luigi Rivoli, who had discovered her and behaved to her like the foul beast he is. I have challenged him to fight me in the only way in which it is possible for me to fight him, and I mean to kill him. I am going to kill him partly for your sake, partly for my own, and partly for that of every wretched recruit and decent man in the Company."
Carmelita drew back.