Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/214

202 a little phial on the table, and waited. Amilcare looked at it, did not touch it. It was a very small phial, half full of a clear liquid.

"You prepared it yourself, Grifone?"

Grifone nodded pleasantly.

"Then I may rest assured—?"

"You may, my lord."

"I will ask you to make all arrangements, Grifone. When the time comes you will take the cup to Madonna Duchessa, with a hint of so much as may be necessary to provide against mischances. Will this be done?"

"Punctually and surely, Excellence." The Secretary retired with his bottle.

Amilcare sat on with a tight smile which neither waxed nor waned, but seemed frozen on his face. He may thus have sat for two or three hours, his eyes fixed on a point at the table's edge. That point, whatever it was, a speck of dust, may be, seemed to grow and grow till it was monstrous and a burden intolerable to endure. Amilcare, with an effort, stretched out his hand and cuffed at it. He knocked a book off the table by this means, then started, then swore at himself. Twice after this he spoke, smiling all the while. "Is it now indeed?" he asked, raising one eyebrow; "is it now indeed?" Then he got up, stretched himself noisily, and lay down as he was on the sofa, to sleep in a moment.

Molly lay with a young maid of hers that night and never had a wink.