But as a member of a body the large majority of which holds the opposite view, I cannot insist upon my personal opinion; and I certainly think that if things of that kind are to be said at all, they should be said temperately and quietly; not in the tone adopted in this pamphlet."
"Will you wait a minute while I look through the manuscript?"
He took it up and glanced down the pages. A dissatisfied frown settled on his face.
"Yes, of course, you are perfectly right.
The thing's written like a cafe chantant skit, not a political satire.
But what's a man to do?
If I write decently the public won't understand it; they will say it's dull if it isn't spiteful enough."
"Don't you think spitefulness manages to be dull when we get too much of it?"
He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst out laughing.
"Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful category of people who are always right!
Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful, I may come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini?
Heavens, what a fate!
No, you needn't frown.
I know you don't like me, and I am going to keep to business.
What it comes to, then, is practically this: if I cut out the personalities and leave the essential part of the thing as it is, the committee will very much regret that they can't take the responsibility of printing it. If I cut out the political truth and make all the hard names apply to no one but the party's enemies, the committee will praise the thing up to the skies, and you and I will know it's not worth printing.
Rather a nice point of metaphysics: Which is the more desirable condition, to be printed and not be worth it, or to be worth it and not be printed?
Well, signora?"
"I do not think you are tied to any such alternative.
I believe that if you were to cut out the personalities the committee would consent to print the pamphlet, though the majority would, of course, not agree with it; and I am convinced that it would be very useful.
But you would have to lay aside the spitefulness.
If you are going to say a thing the substance of which is a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening them at the beginning by the form."
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
"I submit, signora; but on one condition.
If you rob me of my laugh now, I must have it out next time.
When His Eminence, the irreproachable Cardinal, turns up in Florence, neither you nor your committee must object to my being as spiteful as I like.
It's my due!"
He spoke in his lightest, coldest manner, pulling the chrysanthemums out of their vase and holding them up to watch the light through the translucent petals.
"What an unsteady hand he has," she thought, seeing how the flowers shook and quivered. "Surely he doesn't drink!"
"You had better discuss the matter with the other members of the committee," she said, rising. "I cannot form any opinion as to what they will think about it."
"And you?" He had risen too, and was leaning against the table, pressing the flowers to his face
She hesitated.
The question distressed her, bringing up old and miserable associations.
"I --hardly know," she said at last. "Many years ago I used to know something about Monsignor Montanelli.
He was only a canon at that time, and Director of the theological seminary in the province where I lived as a girl.
I heard a great deal about him from--someone who knew him very intimately; and I never heard anything of him that was not good. I believe that, in those days at least, he was really a most remarkable man.
But that was long ago, and he may have changed.
Irresponsible power corrupts so many people."
The Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and looked at her with a steady face.
"At any rate," he said, "if Monsignor Montanelli is not himself a scoundrel, he is a tool in scoundrelly hands.
It is all one to me which he is--and to my friends across the frontier.
A stone in the path may have the best intentions, but it must be kicked out of the path, for all that. Allow me, signora!" He rang the bell, and, limping to the door, opened it for her to pass out. "It was very kind of you to call, signora.
May I send for a vettura?
No?
Good-afternoon, then! Bianca, open the hall-door, please."
Gemma went out into the street, pondering anxiously.
"My friends across the frontier"-- who were they?
And how was the stone to be kicked out of the path?
If with satire only, why had he said it with such dangerous eyes?
CHAPTER IV.
MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence in the first week of October.