, I hope, the very enviable honour of being set down after you on
the list.'

He burst into a rather coarse laugh, showing his splendid teeth.

'I fancy that my doughty deeds in India, which Giulio Musellaro spread
abroad, have added to my beard several heroic strands of irresistible
virtue.'

'Ah, just in these days that beard of yours should fairly quiver with
memories.'

'What memories?'

'Memories of a Bacchic nature.'

'I don't understand.'

'What, have you forgotten the famous May Bazaar of 1884?'

'Well, upon my word, now that you remind me of it, the third anniversary
does fall on one of these next days. But you were not there--who told
you?

'You want to know more than is good for you, my dear boy.'

'Do tell me!'

'Bend your mind rather to making the most skilful use of this
anniversary and give me news as soon as you have any.'

'When shall I see you again?'

'Whenever you like.'

'Then dine with me to-night at the Club--about eight o'clock. That will
give us an opportunity of seeing after the other affair too.'

'All right. Good-bye, Goldbeard. Run!'

They parted in the Piazza di Spagna, at the foot of the steps, and as
Elena came across the square in the direction of the Via due Macelli to
go up to the Quattro Fontane, Secinaro joined her and walked on with
her.

The strain of dissimulation once over, Andrea's heart sank within him
like a leaden weight. He did not know how he was to drag himself up the
steps. He was quite assured that, after this, Secinaro would tell him
everything, and somehow this seemed to him a point to his advantage. By
a sort of intoxication, a species of madness, resulting from the
severity of his sufferings, he rushed blindly into new and ever more
cruel and senseless torments; aggravating and complicating his miserable
state in a thousand ways; passing from perversion to perversion, from
aberration to aberration, without being able to hold back or to stop for
one moment in his giddy descent. He seemed to be devoured by an
inextinguishable fever, the heat of which made all the germs of human
lust lying dormant in the hidden depths of his being flourish and grow
big. His every thought, his every emotion showed the same stain.

And yet, it was the very deception itself that bound him so strongly to
the woman he deceived. His mind had adapted itself so thoroughly to the
monstrous comedy that he was no longer capable of conceiving any other
way of satisfying his