“I believe,” said Galli, “the perfect freedom of life in a barbarous country would attract me more than any scenery. A man must feel his personal, human dignity as he can never feel it in our crowded towns.” “Yes,” the Gadfly answered; “that is----” Gemma raised her eyes from her knitting and looked at him. He flushed suddenly scarlet and broke off. There was a little pause. “Surely it is not come on again?” asked Galli anxiously. “Oh, nothing to speak of, thanks to your s-s-soothing application that I b-b-blasphemed against. Are you going already, Martini?” “Yes. Come along, Galli; we shall be late.” Gemma followed the two men out of the room, and presently returned with an egg beaten up in milk. “Take this, please,” she said with mild authority; and sat down again to her knitting. The Gadfly obeyed meekly. For half an hour, neither spoke. Then the Gadfly said in a very low voice: “Signora Bolla!” She looked up. He was tearing the fringe of the couch-rug, and kept his eyes lowered. “You didn't believe I was speaking the truth just now,” he began. “I had not the smallest doubt that you were telling falsehoods,” she answered quietly. “You were quite right. I was telling falsehoods all the time.” “Do you mean about the war?” “About everything. I was not in that war at all; and as for the expedition, I had a few adventures, of course, and most of those stories are true, but it was not that way I got smashed. You have detected me in one lie, so I may as well confess the lot, I suppose.” “Does it not seem to you rather a waste of energy to invent so many falsehoods?” she asked. “I should have thought it was hardly worth the trouble.” “What would you have? You know your own English proverb: 'Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies.' It's no pleasure to me to fool people that way, but I must answer them somehow when they ask what made a cripple of me; and I may as well invent something pretty while I'm about it. You saw how pleased Galli was.” “Do you prefer pleasing Galli to speaking the truth?” “The truth!” He looked up with the torn fringe in his hand. “You wouldn't have me tell those people the truth? I'd cut my tongue out first!” Then with an awkward, shy abruptness: “I have never told it to anybody yet; but I'll tell you if you care to hear.” She silently laid down her knitting. To her there was something grievously pathetic in this hard, secret, unlovable creature, suddenly flinging his personal confidence at the feet of a woman whom he barely knew and whom he apparently disliked. A long silence followed, and she looked up. He was leaning his left arm on the little table beside him, and shading his eyes with the mutilated hand, and she noticed the nervous tension of the fingers and the throbbing of the scar on the wrist. She came up to him and called him softly by name. He started violently and raised his head. “I f-forgot,” he stammered apologetically. “I was g-going to t-tell you about----”