, ready to sacrifice
anything or everything just then. "Do not tell me it is hopeless. I will
see your wife often and I will talk to her. I am older than she, and I
can make her understand many things."

"Do not try it," said Reanda, in an altered tone. "I advise you not to
try it. You can do no good there, and you might find trouble."

"Find trouble?" repeated Francesca, not understanding him. "What do you
mean? Does she dislike me?"

"Have you not seen it?" he asked, with a bitter smile.

Francesca did not answer him at once, but bent her head again. Once or
twice she looked up as though she were about to speak.

"It is as I tell you," said Reanda, nodding his head slowly.

Francesca made up her mind, but the scarlet blood rose in her face.

"It is better to be honest and frank," she said. "Is Gloria jealous of
me?" She was so much ashamed that she could hardly look at him just
then.

"Jealous! She would kill you!" he cried, and there was anger in his
voice at the thought. "Do not go to her. Something might happen."

The blush in Francesca's face deepened and then subsided, and she grew
very pale again.

"But if she is jealous, she loves you," she said earnestly and
anxiously.

He shrugged his high thin shoulders, and the bitter smile came back to
his face.

"It is a stage jealousy," he said cruelly. "How could she pass the time
without something to divert her? She is always acting."

"But what is she jealous of?" asked Francesca. "How can she be jealous
of me? Because you work here? She is free to come if she likes, and to
stay all day. I do not understand."

"Who can understand her? God, who made her, understands her. I am only a
man. I know only one thing, that I loved her and do not love her. And
she makes a scene for every day. One day it is you, and another day it
is the walls she does not like. You will forgive me, Princess. I speak
frankly what comes to my mouth from my heart. The whole story is this.
She makes my life intolerable. I am not an idle man, the first you may
meet in society, to spend my time from morning to night in studying my
wife's caprices. I am an artist. When I have worked I must have peace. I
do not ask for intelligent conversation like yours. But I must have
peace. One of these days I shall strangle her with my hands. The Lord
will forgive me and understand. I am full of nerves. Is it my fault? She
twists them as the women wring out clothes at the fountain. It is not a
li