"I am making friends with the fellow's secretary," said Henry. "She likes me, I may say. And she talks quite a lot. She would not consciously betray her chief's confidence, though she does not like him; but all the same I get many clues from her.... Oh, my God----!" The ejaculation, which was made under his breath, was shocked involuntarily out of him by the sight of Dr. Franchi's Persian cat extracting with its paw from a bowl that stood on the terrace balustrade a large gold-fish and devouring it. After the first glance Henry looked away, leaning back in his chair, momentarily overcome with a feeling of nausea, which made his face glisten white and damp, and caused the sweat to break hotly on his brow, while the lake swayed and darkened before his eyes. It was a feeling to which he was unfortunately subject when he saw the smaller of God's creatures suffering these mischances at the hands of their larger brethren. His nerves were not strong, and he had an excessive dislike of witnessing unpleasant sights. "You don't feel well?" Dr. Franchi solicitously inquired. "The gold-fish," his guest murmured. "Eaten alive ... what an end!" Dr. Franchi's delicate, dark Latin brows rose. "The gold-fish? Ah, my wicked Pellico.... I cannot keep him from the bowl, the rascal. I regret that he so upset you. But the sensibility of gold-fish is not great, surely? As the peasants say, non son chretiani loro!" "Forgive me. To see a live fish devoured ... it took me unawares.... I shall be all right soon...." As from a great distance Henry, still fighting the sensation of nausea, was half aware of the ex-cardinal's piercing eyes fixed on him with extraordinary intensity. "I am all right now," said Henry. "A momentary faintness--quite absurd.... I expect gold-fish do not really feel either emotion or pain. They say that fish do not feel hooks. Or worms, either.... They say all sorts of comforting things about this distressing world, don't they. One should try to believe them all...." "You are," said Dr. Franchi quietly, "if I may say so, a decidedly unusual young man." "Indeed, no," said Henry. "But I have encroached on you long enough. I must go." 18 The motor-launch churned its foaming path down the moonlit lake. Henry sat in the stern, trailing his fingers in cool, phosphorescent water, happy, drowsy, and well fed. What a delightful evening! What a charming old man! What a divine way of being taken home! And now he had the warm, encouraged feeling of not pursuing a lone trail, for the ex-cardinal's last words to him had been: "Coraggio! Follow every clue; push home every piece of evidence. Between us we will yet lay this enemy of the public good by the heel." The very thought that they would yet do that flushed Henry's cheek and kindled his eye.