Another burst of laughter came from the garden. Gemma rose and opened the window. Zita, with a gold-embroidered scarf wound coquettishly round her head, was standing in the garden path, holding up a bunch of violets, for the possession of which three young cavalry officers appeared to be competing. “Mme. Reni!” said Gemma. Zita's face darkened like a thunder-cloud. “Madame?” she said, turning and raising her eyes with a defiant look. “Would your friends mind speaking a little more softly? Signor Rivarez is very unwell.” The gipsy flung down her violets. “Allez-vous en!” she said, turning sharply on the astonished officers. “Vous m'embetez, messieurs!” She went slowly out into the road. Gemma closed the window. “They have gone away,” she said, turning to him. “Thank you. I--I am sorry to have troubled you.” “It was no trouble.” He at once detected the hesitation in her voice. “'But?'” he said. “That sentence was not finished, signora; there was an unspoken 'but' in the back of your mind.” “If you look into the backs of people's minds, you mustn't be offended at what you read there. It is not my affair, of course, but I cannot understand----” “My aversion to Mme. Reni? It is only when----” “No, your caring to live with her when you feel that aversion. It seems to me an insult to her as a woman and as----” “A woman!” He burst out laughing harshly. “Is THAT what you call a woman? 'Madame, ce n'est que pour rire!'” “That is not fair!” she said. “You have no right to speak of her in that way to anyone--especially to another woman!” He turned away, and lay with wide-open eyes, looking out of the window at the sinking sun. She lowered the blind and closed the shutters, that he might not see it set; then sat down at the table by the other window and took up her knitting again. “Would you like the lamp?” she asked after a moment. He shook his head. When it grew too dark to see, Gemma rolled up her knitting and laid it in the basket. For some time she sat with folded hands, silently watching the Gadfly's motionless figure. The dim evening light, falling on his face, seemed to soften away its hard, mocking, self-assertive look, and to deepen the tragic lines about the mouth. By some fanciful association of ideas her memory went vividly back to the stone cross which her father had set up in memory of Arthur, and to its inscription: “All thy waves and billows have gone over me.” An hour passed in unbroken silence. At last she rose and went softly out of the room. Coming back with a lamp, she paused for a moment, thinking that the Gadfly was asleep. As the light fell on his face he turned round. “I have made you a cup of coffee,” she said, setting down the lamp. “Put it down a minute. Will you come here, please.” He took both her hands in his.