He grasped her hands, at first timidly, then eagerly with hungry insatiability. Ran feverish fingers up her arms to her shoulders, attained her face, caressed it with the groping, seeking gestures of a blind man. Then, with a smothered cry, he fell back limply in his chair. "Alexis, my poor boy!" The gaunt, dry hands in hers, Anne pressed them to her heart. Cracked lips parted over set teeth, he leaned back, gasping a little. "Forgive me," he whispered. "I am still rather weak." She was frightened. "Isn't there something I can do for you? Some medicine you can take?" With a feeble movement of the still-graceful hands, he brushed the idea aside. "The sight of you--is all--I want to cure me completely," he articulated between difficult, hissing breaths. "You are more beautiful than ever, Anne." Her smile was wistful. "Dear Alexis, I am getting old now." "Old?" He looked genuinely surprised. "I see no difference," he added with no attempt at compliment. "Oh, Anne, the years, how long they have been in passing!" She choked back a sob. "And yet you shouldn't be too unkind to them, dear Alexis, for they have brought you fame." A wan smile rode the gaunt face. "Fame? What is that? A bubble which dissipates as you grasp it," he snatched at the air. "A flower in your buttonhole that smells sweet at first, but becomes rank before nightfall. A nothing for which you pay with your heart's sweat." He paused and the thin fingers drummed rhythmically on the iron table. "But you mustn't think I am ungrateful, Anne. The work itself, I love, but only for itself. It has kept me sane. That--and the boy." His face brightened. He turned eagerly towards Anne. "Tell me about him," she whispered. "He must be a big boy by now." "Almost eleven." The hoarse voice was full of pride. "He is in school in England--I don't dare to keep him with me now." He pointed to his chest. "I miss him every minute, Anne. He has always spent his vacations with me ever since he started going away to school. Before that, we were together constantly. When he was a baby the little beggar would go to sleep for my violin, when his nurse could do nothing with him." Anne smiled through tears. "You must love each other very much." "Oh, we do. He went with me on all my long tours. We have been inseparable ever since----" he choked. She nodded. "Yes, Alexis, I know." He looked at her somberly. The pent-up tragedy of the years passed by in his dilated pupils. "We will not speak of that," he whispered. She shook her head. "No, Alexis, but it was ghastly for me, too. I feel I must tell you that, at least. I was ill, not myself, for months. I was on the point of writing you many times but----" she stopped while the crimson spread to her forehead. It seemed too brutal to tell him about Vittorio and the children. He understood her hesitation and smiled bravely. "So I did the right thing after all! Anne, dearest, don't be afraid to tell me the truth. Are you happy at last?"