I nodded. The rumour was, alas! too well known to me. How is it that the memory of one woman clings to a man above all others? Why does one woman’s face haunt every man, whatever age he may be, or whether he be honest or a thief?
Whitaker was watching my countenance so intently that I was filled with surprise. I had never told a soul of my flirtation.
Three youths passed along the pavement playing upon their mandolines an air from the latest opera at the Arena, laughing at two hatless girls of the people who were drinking coffee at the table next to us, and next moment the al fresco orchestra in the balcony above struck up a waltz.
“Faugh!” cried my companion, starting up. “Let’s go. This music is intolerable! Let’s walk along the Lung Arno, by the river.”
I rose, and together we strolled to the river-side along that embankment, the favourite walk of Dante and of Petrarch, of Raphael and of Michelangelo. All was silent, for the great ponderous palaces lining the river were closed till winter, and there were no shops or cafés.
For a long time we walked in the brilliant night without uttering a word. At last he said in a strange, hard voice—
“I’ve received news to-day which every other man beside myself would regard as the very worst information possible, and yet, to me, it is the most welcome.”
“What’s that?” I inquired.
“I saw two doctors, Pellegrini and Gori, to-day, and both have said the same thing—I am dying. In a few weeks I shall have ceased to trouble anybody.”
“Dying!” I gasped, halting and staring at him. “Why, my dear fellow, you are the very picture of health.”