in places where they ought not to be. He looked everywhere
in the passage and in Guido's room, but Cecilia had not dropped
anything. Then he examined his beard in the glass, with an absurd
exaggeration of caution. Her loose brown veil had touched his cheek, a
single silk thread of it clinging to his beard might tell a tale. He was
a man who had more than once lived among savages and knew how slight a
trace might lead to a broad trail. Then he got a chair and set it
against the side of the tall wardrobe. Standing on it he got hold of the
cornice with his hands, drew himself up till he could see over it,
remained suspended by one hand and, with the other, laid the revolver
and the cartridges on the top. Guido would never find them there.

The Countess's unnecessary shyness had disappeared as soon as she saw
how ill Guido looked. His head was aching terribly now, and he had a
little fever again, but he raised himself as well as he could to greet
her, and smiled courteously as she held out her hand.

"This is very kind of you, my dear lady," he managed to say, but his own
voice sounded far off.

"I was really so anxious about you!" the Countess said, with a little
laugh. "And--and about it all, you know. Now tell me how you really
are!"

Guido said that he had felt better in the morning, but now had a bad
headache. She sympathised with him and suggested bathing his temples
with Eau de Cologne, which seemed simple. She always did it herself when
she had a headache, she said. The best was the Forty-Seven Eleven kind.
But of course he knew that.

He felt that he should probably go mad if she stayed five minutes
longer, but his courteous manner did not change, though her face seemed
to be jumping up and down at every throb he felt in his head. She was
very kind, he repeated. He had some Eau de Cologne of that very sort. He
never used any other. This sounded in his own ears so absurdly like the
advertisements of patent soap that he smiled in his pain.

Yes, she repeated, it was quite the best; and she seemed a little
embarrassed, as if she wanted to say something else but could not make
up her mind to speak. Could she do anything to make him more
comfortable? She could go away, but he could not tell her so. He thanked
her. Lamberti and his man had taken most excellent care of him. Why did
he not have a nurse? There were the Sisters of Charity, and the French
sisters who wore dark blue and were very good; she could not rem