and the brilliant light in the room threw the
man's deadly pallor into strong relief.

"Will you play, Count?" asked Orsino, making room for him.

"Thanks--no. I never play nowadays," answered Spicca quietly.

He turned and left the room. With all his apparent weakness his step was
not unsteady, though it was slower than in the old days.

"He sighed in that way because we did not quarrel," said the man whose
quoted proverb had annoyed Orsino.

"I am ready and anxious to quarrel with everybody to-night," answered
Orsino. "Let us play baccarat--that is much better."

Spicca left the club alone and walked slowly homewards to his small
lodging in the Via della Croce. A few dying embers smouldered in the
little fireplace which warmed his sitting-room. He stirred them slowly,
took a stick of wood from the wicker basket, hesitated a moment, and
then put it back again instead of burning it. The night was not cold and
wood was very dear. He sat down under the light of the old lamp which
stood upon the mantelpiece, and drew a long breath. But presently,
putting his hand into the pocket of his overcoat in search of his
cigarette case, he drew out something else which he had almost
forgotten, a small something wrapped in coarse paper. He undid it and
looked at the little frame of chiselled brass which Donna Tullia had
found him buying in the afternoon, turning it over and over, absently,
as though thinking of something else.

Then he fumbled in his pockets again and found a photograph which he had
also bought in the course of the day--the photograph of Gouache's latest
portrait, obtained in a contraband fashion and with some difficulty from
the photographer.

Without hesitation Spicca took a pocket-knife and began to cut the head
out, with that extraordinary neatness and precision which characterised
him when he used any sharp instrument. The head just fitted the frame.
He fastened it in with drops of sealing-wax and carefully burned the
rest of the picture in the embers.

The face of Maria Consuelo smiled at him in the lamplight, as he turned
it in different ways so as to find the best aspect of it. Then he hung
it on a nail above the mantelpiece just under a pair of crossed foils.

"That man Gouache is a very clever fellow," he said aloud. "Between
them, he and nature have made a good likeness."

He sat down again and it was a long time before he made up his mind to
take away the lamp and go to bed.

CHAPTER X