said the ox
in the yoke was strong or the Tiber strong at flood.

"Why are you a fisherman now?" she said. "Why do you leave your arena?"

I shuddered a little. "Since the child fell"--I muttered, thinking she
would understand the remorse that made my old beloved calling horrible
to me.

"It was no fault of yours," she said with a dreamy smile. "They say I
have the evil eye--"

"You have, madama," I said bluntly, and then felt a choking in my
throat, fearing my own rashness.

Her beautiful eyes had a bright scorn in them, and a cold mockery of me.
"Why do you stay, then?" she asked, and smiled at the red carnations
carelessly.

"Because--rather would I die of beholding you than live shut out from
sight of you," I said in my madness. "Madama, I am a great useless fool:
I have done nothing but leap and climb and make a show. I am big and
strong as the oxen are, but they work, and I have never worked. I have
shown myself, and the people have thrown me money--a silly life, good to
no man or beast. Oh yes, that I know full well now; and I have killed
Phoebus because you looked at me; and my mother, who has loved me all
her life, is old before her time through my fault. I am a graceless
fool, a mountebank. When I put off my spangles and stand thus, you see
the rude peasant that I am. And yet in all the great, wide, crowded
world I know there does not live another who could love you as I
love--seeing you twice."

I stopped; the sound of my own voice frightened me; the dull tapestries
upon the wall heaved and rocked round me. I saw her as through a mist,
leaning there with both arms on the broken marble vase.

A momentary smile passed over her face. She seemed diverted, not angered
as I feared. She had listened without protest. No doubt she knew it very
well before I spoke. "You are very strong," she said at length. "Strong
men are always feeble--somewhere. If the count Taddeo heard you he
would--" Then some sudden fancy struck her, and she laughed aloud, her
bright red lips all tremulous and convulsed with laughter. "What could
he do? You could crush him with one hand, as you could crush a newt!
Poor Taddeo! did he not beat your fish down, give you watered wine, the
rinsings of the barrel, yesterday? That is Taddeo always."

She laughed again, but there was something so cruel in that laughter
that it held me mute. I dared not speak to her. I stood there stupidly.

"Do you know that he is rich?" she said abruptly, g