."

Artois had stepped back.

"I--in love!" he said.

His voice was contemptuous, but his face had become flushed, and his
hands suddenly clinched themselves.

"What! you play the hypocrite even with yourself! Ah, we Neapolitans, we
may be shocking; but at least we are sincere! You do not know!--then I
will tell you. You love the Signorina madly, and you hate me because you
are jealous of me--because I am young and you are old. I know it; the
Signora knows it; that Sicilian--Gaspare--he knows it! And now you--you
know it!"

He suddenly flung himself down on the sofa that was behind him.
Perspiration was running down his face, and even his hands were wet with
it.

Artois said nothing, but stood where he was, looking at the Marchesino,
as if he were waiting for something more which must inevitably come. The
Marchesino took out his handkerchief, passed it several times quickly
over his lips, then rolled it up into a ball and shut it up in his left
hand.

"I am young and you are old," he said. "And that is all the matter. You
hate me, not because you think I am wicked and might do the Signorina
harm, but because I am young. You try to keep the Signorina from me
because I am young. You do not dare to let her know what youth is,
really, really to know, really, really to feel. Because, if once she did
know, if once she did feel, if she touched the fire"--he struck his hand
down on his breast--"she would be carried away, she would be gone from
you forever. You think, 'Now she looks up to me! She reverences me! She
admires me! She worships me as a great man!' And if once, only once she
touched the fire--ah!"--he flung out both his arms with a wide gesture,
opened his mouth, then shut it, showing his teeth like an animal.--"Away
would go everything--everything. She would forget your talent, she would
forget your fame, she would forget your thoughts, your books, she would
forget you, do you hear?--all, all of you. She would remember only that
you are old and she is young, and that, because of that, she is not for
you. And then"--his voice dropped, became cold and serious and deadly,
like the voice of one proclaiming a stark truth--"and then, if she
understood you, what you feel, and what you wish, and how you think of
her--she would hate you! How she would hate you!"

He stopped abruptly, staring at Artois, who said nothing.

"Is it not true?" he said.

He got up, taking his hat and stick from the floor.

"You do no