lady had an invincible repugnance for vulgar weapons, and
Freya referred freely to a portable medicine case full of anesthetics
and poisons.

"Besides this she carries on her person a little bag full of certain
powders of her own invention,--tobacco, red pepper.... Perfect little
devils! Whoever gets them in the eyes is blinded for life. It is as
though she were throwing flames."

She herself was less complicated in her measures of defense. She had
her revolver, a species of firearms which she managed to keep hidden
just as certain insects hide their sting, without knowing certainly
when it might be necessary to draw it forth. And if she could not avail
herself of that, she always relied on her hatpin.

"Just look at it!... With what gusto I could pierce the heart of many a
person!..."

And she showed him a kind of hidden poniard, a keen, triangular
stiletto of genuine steel, capped by a large glass pearl that served as
its hilt.

"Among what kind of people are you living!" murmured the practical
voice in Ferragut's interior. "What have you mixed yourself up with, my
son!" But his tendency to discount danger, not to live like other
people, made him find a deep enchantment in this novel-like existence.

The doctor no longer went on excursions, but her visitors were
increasing in number. Sometimes, when Ulysses was starting toward her
room, Freya would stop him.

"Don't go.... They're having a consultation."

Upon opening the door of the landing that corresponded to his quarters
he saw, on various occasions, the green screened door of the office
closing behind many men, all of them of Teutonic aspect, travelers who
had just disembarked in Naples with a certain precipitation, neighbors
from the city who used to receive orders from the doctor.

She appeared much more preoccupied than usual. Her eyes would pass over
Freya and the sailor as though she did not see them.

"Bad news from Rome," Ferragut's companion told him. "Those accursed
mandolin-strummers are getting away from us."

Ulysses began to feel a certain boredom in these monotonously
voluptuous days. His senses were becoming blunted with so many
indulgences mechanically repeated. Besides, a monstrous debilitation
was making him think in self-defense of the tranquil life of the
hearth. He timidly began calculating the time of his seclusion. How
long had he been living with her?... His confused and crowded memory
besought her aid.

"Fifteen days," rep