"I've never mattered to any one."
She muttered the words to herself. As she did so Artois seemed again
to be looking into the magic mirror of the /fattura della morte/, to
see the pale man, across whose face the shadow of a palm-leaf shifted,
turning on his bed towards a woman who stood by an open door.
"You have always mattered to me," he said.
As he spoke there was in his voice that peculiar ring of utter
sincerity which can no more be simulated, or mistaken, than the
ringing music of sterling gold. But perhaps she was not in a condition
to hear rightly, or perhaps something within her chose to deny, had a
lust for denial because denial hurt her.
"To you least of all," she said. "Only yourself has ever really
mattered to you."
In a sentence she summed up the long catalogue that had been given to
him by her silence.
His whole body felt as if it reddened. His skin tingled with a sort of
physical anger. His mature pride that had grown always, as a strong
man's natural pride does grow with the passing of the years, seemed to
him instinctively to rush forward to return the blow that had been
dealt it.
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