ench song:

"Eh, Pierrot! Danse, Pierrot!
Danse un peu, mon pauvre Jeannot!
Vive la danse et l'allegresse!
Jouissons de notre bell' jeunesse!
Si moi je pleure ou moi je soupire,
Si moi je fais la triste figure--
Monsieur, ce n'est que pour rire!
Ha! Ha, ha, ha!
Monsieur, ce n'est que pour rire!"

At the first words the Gadfly tore his hand from Gemma's and shrank away
with a stifled groan. She clasped both hands round his arm and pressed
it firmly, as she might have pressed that of a person undergoing a
surgical operation. When the song broke off and a chorus of laughter and
applause came from the garden, he looked up with the eyes of a tortured
animal.

"Yes, it is Zita," he said slowly; "with her officer friends. She tried
to come in here the other night, before Riccardo came. I should have
gone mad if she had touched me!"

"But she does not know," Gemma protested softly. "She cannot guess that
she is hurting you."

"She is like a Creole," he answered, shuddering. "Do you remember her
face that night when we brought in the beggar-child? That is how the
half-castes look when they laugh."

Another burst of laughter came from the garden. Gemma rose and opened
the window. Zita, with a gold-embroidered scarf wound coquettishly
round her head, was standing in the garden path, holding up a bunch
of violets, for the possession of which three young cavalry officers
appeared to be competing.

"Mme. Reni!" said Gemma.

Zita's face darkened like a thunder-cloud. "Madame?" she said, turning
and raising her eyes with a defiant look.

"Would your friends mind speaking a little more softly? Signor Rivarez
is very unwell."

The gipsy flung down her violets. "Allez-vous en!" she said, turning
sharply on the astonished officers. "Vous m'embetez, messieurs!"

She went slowly out into the road. Gemma closed the window.

"They have gone away," she said, turning to him.

"Thank you. I--I am sorry to have troubled you."

"It was no trouble." He at once detected the hesitation in her voice.

"'But?'" he said. "That sentence was not finished, signora; there was an
unspoken 'but' in the back of your mind."

"If you look into the backs of people's minds, you mustn't be offended
at what you read there. It is not my affair, of course, but I cannot
understand----"

"My aversion to Mme. Reni? It is only when----"

"No, your caring to live with her when you feel that aversion. It seems
to me a