The Making of a Saint

by W. Somerset Maugham

'He will be grinding his teeth, and inwardly spitting fire; but he will take us to his arms and embrace us, and try to make us believe he loves us with the most Christian affection.'

'Very well; come on!'

Donna Claudia, at all events, was delighted to see us, and she began making eyes and sighing, and putting her hand to her bosom in the most affecting manner.

'Why have you not been to see me, Messer Filippo?' she asked.

'Indeed, madam, I was afraid of being intrusive.'

'Ah,' she said, with a sweeping glance, 'how could you be! No, there was another reason for your absence. Alas!'

'I dared not face those lustrous eyes.'

She turned them full on me, and then turned them up, Madonna-wise, showing the whites.

'Are they so cruel, do you think?'

'They are too brilliant. How dangerous to the moth is the candle; and in this case the candle is twain.'