' He knew well the
effect of his books.
Sperelli bowed. Elena gave him her hand without rising. Her husband
accompanied him to the door, where he repeated in a low voice--'You
won't forget those clasps?'
As Andrea stood in the portico, he saw a carriage coming up the drive. A
man with a great golden beard nodded to him from the window. It was
Galeazzo Secinaro.
In a flash, the recollection of the May Bazaar came back to him, and the
episode of Galeazzo offering Elena a sum of money if she would dry her
beautiful hands, all wet with champagne, on his beard. He hurried
through the garden and out into the street. He had a dull confused sense
as of some deafening noise going on inside his head.
It was an afternoon at the end of April, warm and moist.
The sun appeared and disappeared again among the fleecy slow-sailing
clouds. The languor of the sirocco lay over Rome.
On the pavement in front of him in the Via Sistina, he perceived a lady
walking slowly in the direction of the Trinita. He recognised her as
Donna Maria Ferres. He looked at his watch; it was on the stroke of
five; only a minute or two before the accustomed hour of meeting. Maria
was assuredly on her way to the Palazzo Zuccari.
He hastened forward to join her. When he reached her side, he called her
by name.
She started violently. 'What? You here? I was just going up to you.
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