ONE day in the first week of January Martini, who had sent round the forms of invitation to the monthly group-meeting of the literary committee, received from the Gadfly a laconic, pencil-scrawled "Very sorry: can't come." He was a little annoyed, as a notice of "important business" had been put into the invitation; this cavalier treatment seemed to him almost insolent. Moreover, three separate letters containing bad news arrived during the day, and the wind was in the east, so that Martini felt out of sorts and out of temper; and when, at the group meeting, Dr. Riccardo asked, "Isn't Rivarez here?" he answered rather sulkily: "No; he seems to have got something more interesting on hand, and can't come, or doesn't want to."
"Really, Martini," said Galli irritably, "you are about the most prejudiced person in Florence. Once you object to a man, everything he does is wrong. How could Rivarez come when he's ill?"
"Who told you he was ill?"
"Didn't you know? He's been laid up for the last four days."
"What's the matter with him?"
"I don't know. He had to put off an appointment with me on Thursday on account of illness; and last night, when I went round, I heard that he was too ill to see anyone. I thought Riccardo would be looking after him."
"I knew nothing about it. I'll go round to-night and see if he wants anything."
The next morning Riccardo, looking very pale and tired, came into Gemma's little study. She was sitting at the table, reading out monotonous strings of figures to Martini, who, with a magnifying glass in one hand and a finely pointed pencil in the other, was making tiny marks in the pages of a book. She made with one hand a gesture requesting silence. Riccardo, knowing that a person who is writing in cipher must not be interrupted, sat down on the sofa behind her and yawned like a man who can hardly keep awake.
"2, 4; 3, 7; 6, 1; 3, 5; 4> 1;" Gemma's voice went on with machine-like evenness. "8, 4; 7, 2; 5, 1; that finishes the sentence, Cesare."
She stuck a pin into the paper to mark the exact place, and turned round.
"Good-morning, doctor; how fagged you look! Are you well?"
"Oh, I'm well enough--only tired out. I've had an awful night with Rivarez."
"With Rivarez?"
"Yes; I've been up with him all night, and now I must go off to my hospital patients. I just came round to know whether you can think of anyone that could look after him a bit for the next few days. He's in a devil of a state. I'll do my best, of course; but I really haven't the time; and he won't hear of my sending in a nurse."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Well, rather a complication of things. First of all----"
"First of all, have you had any breakfast?"
"Yes, thank you. About Rivarez--no doubt, it's complicated with a lot of nerve trouble; but the main cause of disturbance is an old injury that seems to have been disgracefully neglected. Altogether, he's in a frightfully knocked-about state; I suppose it was that war in South America --and he certainly didn't get proper care when the mischief was done. Probably things were managed in a very rough-and-ready fashion out there; he's lucky to be alive at all. However, there's a chronic tendency to inflammation, and any trifle may bring on an attack----"
"Is that dangerous?"
"N-no; the chief danger in a case of that kind is of the patient getting desperate and taking a dose of arsenic."
"It is very painful, of course?"
"It's simply horrible; I don't know how he manages to bear it. I was obliged to stupefy him with opium in the night--a thing I hate to do with a nervous patient; but I had to stop it somehow."
"He is nervous, I should think."
"Very, but splendidly plucky. As long as he was not actually light-headed with the pain last night, his coolness was quite wonderful. But I had an awful job with him towards the end. How long do you suppose this thing has been going on? Just five nights; and not a soul within call except that stupid landlady, who wouldn't wake if the house tumbled down, and would be no use if she did."
"But what about the ballet-girl?"
"Yes; isn't that a curious thing? He won't let her come near him. He has a morbid horror of her. Altogether, he's one of the most incomprehensible creatures I ever met--a perfect mass of contradictions."
He took out his watch and looked at it with a preoccupied face. "I shall be late at the hospital; but it can't be helped. The junior will have to begin without me for once. I wish I had known of all this before--it ought not to have been let go on that way night after night."
"But why on earth didn't he send to say he was ill?" Martini interrupted. "He might have guessed we shouldn't have left him stranded in that fashion."
"I wish, doctor," said Gemma, "that you had sent for one of us last night, instead of wearing yourself out like this."
"My dear lady, I wanted to send round to Galli; but Rivarez got so frantic at the suggestion that I didn't dare attempt it. When I asked him whether there was anyone else he would like fetched, he looked at me for a minute, as if he were scared out of his wits, and then put up both hands to his eyes and said: 'Don't tell them; they will laugh!' He seemed quite possessed with some fancy about people laughing at something. I couldn't make out what; he kept talking Spanish; but patients do say the oddest things sometimes."
"Who is with him now?" asked Gemma.
"No one except the landlady and her maid."
"I'll go to him at once," said Martini.
"Thank you. I'll look round again in the evening. You'll find a paper of written directions in the table-drawer by the large window, and the opium is on the shelf in the next room. If the pain comes on again, give him another dose--not more than one; but don't leave the bottle where he can get at it, whatever you do; he might be tempted to take too much."
When Martini entered the darkened room, the Gadfly turned his head round quickly, and, holding out to him a burning hand, began, in a bad imitation of his usual flippant manner:
"Ah, Martini! You have come to rout me out about those proofs. It's no use swearing at me for missing the committee last night; the fact is, I have not been quite well, and----"
"Never mind the committee. I have just seen Riccardo, and have come to know if I can be of any use."
The Gadfly set his face like a flint.
"Oh, really! that is very kind of you; but it wasn't worth the trouble. I'm only a little out of sorts."
"So I understood from Riccardo. He was up with you all night, I believe."
The Gadfly bit his lip savagely.
"I am quite comfortable, thank you, and don't want anything."
"Very well; then I will sit in the other room; perhaps you would rather be alone. I will leave the door ajar, in case you call me."
"Please don't trouble about it; I really shan't want anything. I should be wasting your time for nothing."
"Nonsense, man!" Martini broke in roughly. "What's the use of trying to fool me that way? Do you think I have no eyes? Lie still and go to sleep, if you can."
He went into the adjoining room, and, leaving the door open, sat down with a book. Presently he heard the Gadfly move restlessly two or three times. He put down his book and listened. There was a short silence, then another restless movement; then the quick, heavy, panting breath of a man clenching his teeth to suppress a groan. He went back ............