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It may comfort her a little, poor thing." "Indeed it will!" Kalmon's brown eyes beamed with pleasure at the thought of taking the kindly message to the dying girl. He rose to his feet at once. "There is no one like you," he said, as he took her hand. "It is nothing. It is what Marcello's mother would have done, and she was my best friend.
He had recalled Kalmon's face and quiet words, and his own weakness when he had first come to see Marcello in the hospital that abject terror which both Regina and the doctor must have noticed and his first impression that Marcello no longer trusted him as formerly, and many other things; and each time he had been thus disturbed, he had plunged deeper into the dissipation which alone could cloud such memories and keep them out of sight for a time; till at last he had come to live in a continual transition from recklessness to fear and from fear to recklessness, and he had grown to detest the very sight of Marcello so heartily that an open quarrel was almost a relief.
The men who had been sent from the central police station at Kalmon's request arrived a few minutes later. One was at once sent for a surgeon and for more men; the other remained. Soon the little house was full of officials, in uniform and in plain clothes.
It was all so different from the little house in Trastevere with its bright varnished doors, its patent locks, its smart windows, and its lovely old garden. He wished he had not brought Regina to Via Sicilia, though Kalmon's advice had seemed so good.
She nodded, for she knew that. "And do you expect to marry him when he is recovered?" She shook her head and laughed, glancing at Marcello. "He is a gentleman," she whispered, close to Kalmon's ear. "How could he marry me?" "You love him," Kalmon answered. Again she nodded, and laughed too. "What would you do for him?" asked Kalmon, looking at her keenly. "Die for him!"
Marcello bit his lip and closed his eyes as if he were in bodily pain, and a moment later he turned away and went down to Kalmon's apartment. The Professor went back to Regina's side, and stood quietly watching her, with a very sad look in his eyes. She opened hers and saw him, and she brought one hand to her chest.
Kalmon was too deeply attached to the Contessa herself to be willing to risk her displeasure, or, indeed, to do anything of which she would not approve. He went to her house by the Forum of Trajan, and he found her at home. It was late in the afternoon, and the lamp was lighted in the little drawing-room, which did not seem at all shabby to Kalmon's accustomed eyes and not very exigent taste.
The cold sweat stood on Folco's forehead under his hat; he stopped where he was and tried to draw a long breath, but something choked him. Kalmon's voice seemed to reach him from a great distance. Then he felt the Professor's strong arm under his own, supporting him and making him move forward. "The weather is hot," Kalmon said, "and you are ill and tired. Come outside."
So there is nothing at all to thank me for, though I am most heartily at your service." The Professor was positively in high spirits just then, and Marcello envied him as they parted and took opposite directions. Though the Via Sicilia was a long way from the Janiculum, Marcello had been only too glad to accept Kalmon's suggestion at such a moment.
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