The Making of a Saint

by W. Somerset Maugham

'Giorgio dall' Aste,' I explained.

'Oh, I didn't know you meant him. No, he's not here. He and Giulia's husband were not friends, and so—'

'Why were they not friends?' I interrupted, on the spur of the moment, not seeing the impertinence of the question till I had made it.

'Oh, I don't know. Relations always are at enmity with one another; probably some disagreement with regard to their estates.'

'Was that all?'

'So far as I know.'

I recollected that in a scandal the persons most interested are the last to hear it. The husband hears nothing of his wife's treachery till all the town knows every detail.

'I should like to have seen him,' I went on.

'Giorgo? Oh, he's a weak sort of creature; one of those men who commit sins and repent!'

'That is not a fault of which you will ever be guilty, Alessandro,' I said, smiling.