She went to the door, and she turned to smile at him again as she laid her hand on the knob.  He remembered her afterwards as she stood there a single moment with the light on her misty hair and white cheeks, and the little shadow round her small bare throat.  He remembered that he would have given anything to bring her back to the place where she had sat.  There was much less doubt in his mind as to what he felt then than there had been a few minutes earlier.

Half an hour after Sabina had disappeared Malipieri and Volterra were seated in deep armchairs in the smoking-room, the Baron having sent his wife to bed a few minutes after they had come in.  She obeyed meekly as she always did, for she had early discovered that although she was a very energetic woman, Volterra was her master and that it was hopeless to oppose his slightest wish.  It is true that in return for the most absolute obedience the fat financier gave her the strictest fidelity and all the affection of which he was capable.  Like more than one of the great modern freebooters, the Baron’s private life was very exemplary, yet his wife would have been willing to forgive him something if she might occasionally have had her own way.

This evening he was not in good-humour, as Malipieri found out as soon as they were alone together.  He chewed the end of the enormous Havana he had lighted, he stuck his feet out straight in front of him, resting his heels on the floor and turning his shining patent leather toes straight up, he folded his hands upon the magnificent curve of his white waistcoat, and leaning his head well back he looked steadily at the ceiling.  All these were very bad signs, as his wife could have told Malipieri if she had stayed in the room.

Malipieri smoked in silence for some time, entirely forgetting him and thinking of Sabina.

“Well, Mr. Archaeologist,” the Baron said at last, allowing his big cigar to settle well into one corner of his mouth, “there is the devil to pay.”

He spoke as if the trouble were Malipieri’s fault.  The younger man eyed him coldly.

“What is the matter?” he enquired, without the least show of interest.

“You are being watched,” answered Volterra, still looking at the ceiling.  “You are now one of those interesting people whose movements are recorded like the weather, every twelve hours.”

“Yes,” said Malipieri.  “I have known that for some time.”

“The next time you know anything so interesting I wish you would inform me,” replied Volterra.

His voice and his way of speaking irritated Malipieri.  The Baroness had been better educated than her husband from the first; she was more adaptable and she had really learned the ways of the society she loved, but the Baron was never far from the verge of vulgarity, and he often overstepped it.

“When you asked me to help you,” Malipieri said, “you knew perfectly well what my political career had been.  I believe you voted for the bill which drove me out of the country.”