"
"I did not mean that," said Malipieri.
Then he sat a long time with his untasted coffee at his elbow and the
crumpled little sheet in his hand.
"Of course, sir," Masin said at last, "I owe you everything, and if
you ordered me--"
He paused significantly, but his master did not understand.
"What?" he asked, starting nervously.
"Well, sir, if it were necessary for your safety, that somebody should
be killed, I would risk the galleys for life, sir. What am I, without
you?"
Malipieri laughed a little wildly, and dropped the paper.
"No, my friend," he said presently, "we would risk our lives for each
other, but we are not murderers. Besides, there is nobody to be
killed, unless you will have the goodness to put a bullet through my
head."
And he laughed again, in a way that frightened the quiet man beside
him. What drove him almost mad was that he was powerless. He longed to
lay his hands on the editor of the paper, yet there was not a word,
not a suggestion, not an implied allusion for which any man in his
senses could have demanded an apology. It was the plain truth, and
nothing else; except that it was adorned by fragmentary panegyrics of
himself, which made it even more exasperating if that were possible.
He had not only wrecked Sabina's reputation by his quixotic folly; he
was to be praised to the skies for doing it.
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