She must repeat the Minister's
discourse to him. The two musicians had once more ceased playing, and
were talking. Jeanne knocked softly on the door, and blew a few gay
words against it:
"_Bravi!_ Have you finished already?"
"No, pretty one," Chieco answered from the other side. "So much the
worse for you if you are bored!"
He sent forth a fiendish whistle, fit to pierce a hole in the door.
Jeanne clapped her hands. The piano and the violoncello attacked a
solemn _andante_.
She turned to Selva, who was coming in again after having accompanied
his wife into the corridor, in order to tell her to telegraph to Don
Clemente. She went towards him with clasped hands, her eyes full of
tears.
"Selva," she murmured in a stifled voice, "you know everything now. I
cannot hide my feelings from you. Is there something worse? Tell me the
truth."
Selva took her hands and pressed them in silence, while the violoncello
answered for him, bitterly and sadly: "Weep, weep, for there is no fate
like thy fate of love and of grief." He pressed the poor icy hands,
unable to speak.
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