PTER VI.

GEMMA and the Gadfly walked silently along the Lung'Arno. His feverish
talkativeness seemed to have quite spent itself; he had hardly spoken a
word since they left Riccardo's door, and Gemma was heartily glad of his
silence. She always felt embarrassed in his company, and to-day more
so than usual, for his strange behaviour at the committee meeting had
greatly perplexed her.

By the Uffizi palace he suddenly stopped and turned to her.

"Are you tired?"

"No; why?"

"Nor especially busy this evening?"

"No."

"I want to ask a favour of you; I want you to come for a walk with me."

"Where to?"

"Nowhere in particular; anywhere you like."

"But what for?"

He hesitated.

"I--can't tell you--at least, it's very difficult; but please come if
you can."

He raised his eyes suddenly from the ground, and she saw how strange
their expression was.

"There is something the matter with you," she said gently. He pulled a
leaf from the flower in his button-hole, and began tearing it to pieces.
Who was it that he was so oddly like? Someone who had that same trick of
the fingers and hurried, nervous gesture.

"I am in trouble," he said, looking down at his hands and speaking in a
hardly audible voice. "I--don't want to be alone this evening. Will you
come?"

"Yes, certainly, unless you would rather go to my lodgings."

"No; come and dine with me at a restaurant. There's one on the Signoria.
Please don't refuse, now; you've promised!"

They went into a restaurant, where he ordered dinner, but hardly touched
his own share, and remained obstinately silent, crumbling the bread over
the cloth, and fidgeting with the fringe of his table napkin. Gemma felt
thoroughly uncomfortable, and began to wish she had refused to come; the
silence was growing awkward; yet she could not begin to make small-talk
with a person who seemed to have forgotten her presence. At last he
looked up and said abruptly:

"Would you like to see the variety show?"

She stared at him in astonishment. What had he got into his head about
variety shows?

"Have you ever seen one?" he asked before she had time to speak.

"No; I don't think so. I didn't suppose they were interesting."

"They are very interesting. I don't think anyone can study the life of
the people without seeing them. Let us go back to the Porta alla Croce."

When they arrived the mountebanks had set up their tent beside the
town gate, and an abominable scraping of fi