'No.'
'While we were sitting by the piano, he was in the recess of the window,
and never took his eyes off your hands when you were playing with the
weapon of his native country--now reduced to being a paper-cutter for a
European novel.'
'Just now, do you mean?'
'Yes, just now. Perhaps he was thinking how sweet it would be to perform
_Hara-Kiri_ with that little scimitar, the chrysanthemums on which
seemed to blossom out of the lacquer and steel under the touch of your
fingers.'
She did not smile. A veil of sadness, almost of suffering, seemed to
have fallen over her face; her eyes, faintly luminous under the white
lids, seemed drowned in shadow, the corners of her mouth drooped
wearily, her right arm hung straight and languid at her side. She no
longer held out her hand to those who greeted her; she listened no
longer to their speeches.
'What is the matter?' asked Andrea.
'Nothing--I must go to the Van Hueffels' now. Take me to Francesca to
say good-bye, and then come with me down to my carriage.'
They returned to the first drawing-room, where Luigi Gulli, a young man,
swarthy and curly-haired as an Arab, who had left his native Calabria in
search of fortune, was executing, with much feeling, Beethoven's sonata
in C# minor. The Marchesa d'Ateleta, a patroness of his, was standing
near the piano, with her eyes fixed on the keys.
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