has had a terrific argument with Mochales, and worse may follow. Open!" There was still no answer, and suddenly she beat upon the door with her fists. "Liar!" she cried thinly through the wood. "Liar! You bitter old stick! I'll make you eat that necklace, pearl for pearl, sorrow for sorrow!"
A feeling of impotence overwhelmed her at the implacable stillness that succeeded her hysterical outburst. She stood with a pounding heart, and clasped straining fingers.
Abrego y Mochales could kill Cesare without the slightest shadow of a question. There was, she recognized, something essentially feminine in the saturnine bull-fighter; his pride had been severely assaulted; and therefore he would be—in his own, less subtle manner—as dangerous as Gheta. Cesare's self-esteem, too, had been wounded in its most vulnerable place—he had been insulted before her. But, even if the latter refused to proceed, Mochales, she knew, would force an acute conclusion. There was nothing to be got from her sister and she slowly returned to her chamber, from which she could hear Orsi's heavy footfalls.
She mechanically removed the square emerald that hung from a platinum thread about her neck, took off her rings, and proceeded to the small iron safe where valuables were kept. As she swung open the door a sheet of paper slipped forward from an upper compartment. It bore a printed address . . . in the Strada San Lucia. She saw that it was the blackmailing letter Cesare had received from the Neapolitan secret society, demanding two thousand lire. She recalled what he had said at the time—if she had an enemy her gown could be spoiled in the foyer of the opera;
