Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/257

Rh "Come in here, Signor Jean Boule," said Carmelita, and led the way into her room.

The Englishman involuntarily glanced round the little sanctum into which no man save Luigi Rivoli had been known to penetrate, and noted the clean tablecloth, the vase with its bunch of krenfell and oleander flowers, the tiny, tidy dressing table, the dilapidated chest of drawers, bright oleographs, cheap rug, crucifix and plaster Madonna—a room still suggestive of Italy.

Turning, Carmelita faced the Englishman and pointed an accusing finger at his face, her great black eyes staring hard and straight into the narrowed blue ones.

"Signor Jean Boule," she said, "you have played a trick on me; you have deceived me; you have killed my faith in Englishmen—yes, in all men—except my Luigi. Why did you bring your mistress to me and beg my help while you knew you meant to kill my husband, because he had found you out? Oh, Monsieur Jean Boule—but you have hurt me so. And I had thought you like a father—so good a man, yes, like a holy padre, a prête. Oh, Signor Jean Boule, are you like those others, loving wickedly, killing wickedly? Are there no good honest men—except my Luigi? …"

The Englishman shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, twisting his képi in his fingers, a picture of embarrassment and misery. How could he persuade this girl that the man was a double-dealing, villainous blackguard? And if he could do so, why should he? Why destroy her faith and her happiness together? If this hound failed in his attempt upon the celibacy