rward and looked at him earnestly.

"Are you really happy?"

The Gadfly's mobile brows went up.

"Yes; why not? I have had a good dinner; I am looking at one of the
m-most beautiful views in Europe; and now I'm going to have coffee and
hear a Hungarian folk-song. There is nothing the matter with either my
conscience or my digestion; what more can man desire?"

"I know another thing you desire."

"What?"

"That!" She tossed a little cardboard box into his hand.

"B-burnt almonds! Why d-didn't you tell me before I began to s-smoke?"
he cried reproachfully.

"Why, you baby! you can eat them when you have done smoking. There comes
the coffee."

The Gadfly sipped his coffee and ate his burnt almonds with the grave
and concentrated enjoyment of a cat drinking cream.

"How nice it is to come back to d-decent coffee, after the s-s-stuff one
gets at Leghorn!" he said in his purring drawl.

"A very good reason for stopping at home now you are here."

"Not much stopping for me; I'm off again to-morrow."

The smile died on her face.

"To-morrow! What for? Where are you going to?"

"Oh! two or three p-p-places, on business."

It had been decided between him and Gemma that he must go in person into
the Apennines to make arrangements with the smugglers of the frontier
region about the transporting of the firearms. To cross the Papal
frontier was for him a matter of serious danger; but it had to be done
if the work was to succeed.

"Always business!" Zita sighed under her breath; and then asked aloud:

"Shall you be gone long?"

"No; only a fortnight or three weeks, p-p-probably."

"I suppose it's some of THAT business?" she asked abruptly.

"'That' business?"

"The business you're always trying to get your neck broken over--the
everlasting politics."

"It has something to do with p-p-politics."

Zita threw away her cigarette.

"You are fooling me," she said. "You are going into some danger or
other."

"I'm going s-s-straight into the infernal regions," he answered
languidly. "D-do you happen to have any friends there you want to send
that ivy to? You n-needn't pull it all down, though."

She had fiercely torn off a handful of the climber from the pillar, and
now flung it down with vehement anger.

"You are going into danger," she repeated; "and you won't even say so
honestly! Do you think I am fit for nothing but to be fooled and joked
with? You will get yourself hanged one of these days, and never