his anxious queries she said that she had a slight headache, but that it was of no consequence, and that she was ready for the sitting.  Fabio conducted her to his studio, posed her, and took up his brush; but, to his great vexation, he could not possibly finish the face as he would have liked.  And that not because it was somewhat pale and seemed fatigued ... no; but he did not find in it that day the pure, holy expression which he so greatly loved in it, and which had suggested to him the idea of representing Valeria in the form of Saint Cecilia.  At last he flung aside his brush, told his wife that he was not in the mood, that ft would do her good to lie down for a while, as she was not feeling quite well, to judge by her looks,—­and turned his easel so that the portrait faced the wall.  Valeria agreed with him that she ought to rest, and repeating her complaint of headache, she retired to her chamber.

Fabio remained in the studio.  He felt a strange agitation which was incomprehensible even to himself.  Muzio’s sojourn under his roof, a sojourn which he, Fabio, had himself invited, embarrassed him.  And it was not that he was jealous ... was it possible to be jealous of Valeria?—­but in his friend he did not recognise his former comrade.  All that foreign, strange, new element which Muzio had brought with him from those distant lands—­and which, apparently, had entered into his very flesh and blood,—–­all those magical processes, songs, strange beverages, that dumb Malay, even the spicy odour which emanated from Muzio’s garments, from his hair, his breath,—­all this inspired in Fabio a feeling akin to distrust, nay, even to timidity.  And why did that Malay, when serving at table, gaze upon him, Fabio, with such disagreeable intentness?  Really, one might suppose that he understood Italian.  Muzio had said concerning him, that that Malay, in paying the penalty with his tongue, had made a great sacrifice, and in compensation now possessed great power.—­What power?  And how could he have acquired it at the cost of his tongue?  All this was very strange!  Very incomprehensible!

Fabio went to his wife in her chamber; she was lying on the bed fully dressed, but was not asleep.—­On hearing his footsteps she started, then rejoiced again to see him, as she had done in the garden.  Fabio sat down by the bed, took Valeria’s hand, and after a brief pause, he asked her, “What was that remarkable dream which had frightened her during the past night?  And had it been in the nature of that dream which Muzio had related?”

Valeria blushed and said hastily—­“Oh, no! no!  I saw ... some sort of a monster, which tried to rend me.”

“A monster?  In the form of a man?” inquired Fabio.

“No, a wild beast ... a wild beast!”—­And Valeria turned away and hid her flaming face in the pillows.  Fabio held his wife’s hand for a while longer; silently he raised it to his lips, and withdrew.