Some members of the liberal party ventured to remonstrate with the Gadfly about the unnecessary malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but they did not get much satisfaction out of him.
He only smiled affably and answered with a languid little stammer:
"R-really, gentlemen, you are rather unfair.
I expressly stipulated, when I gave in to Signora Bolla, that I should be allowed a l-l-little chuckle all to myself now.
It is so nominated in the bond!"
At the end of October Montanelli returned to his see in the Romagna, and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell sermon in which he spoke of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence of both writers and begging his unknown defender to set an example of tolerance by closing a useless and unseemly war of words.
On the following day the Churchman contained a notice that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly expressed desire,
"A Son of the Church" would withdraw from the controversy.
The last word remained with the Gadfly.
He issued a little leaflet, in which he declared himself disarmed and converted by Montanelli's Christian meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation upon the neck of the first Sanfedist he met.
"I am even willing," he concluded; "to embrace my anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers knew, as his Eminence and I know, what that implies and why he remains anonymous, they would believe in the sincerity of my conversion."
In the latter part of November he announced to the literary committee that he was going for a fortnight's holiday to the seaside. He went, apparently, to Leghorn; but Dr.
Riccardo, going there soon after and wishing to speak to him, searched the town for him in vain.
On the 5th of December a political demonstration of the most extreme character burst out in the States of the Church, along the whole chain of the Apennines; and people began to guess the reason of the Gadfly's sudden fancy to take his holidays in the depth of winter.
He came back to Florence when the riots had been quelled, and, meeting Riccardo in the street, remarked affably:
"I hear you were inquiring for me in Leghorn; I was staying in Pisa.
What a pretty old town it is!
There's something quite Arcadian about it."
In Christmas week he attended an afternoon meeting of the literary committee which was held in Dr. Riccardo's lodgings near the Porta alla Croce.
The meeting was a full one, and when he came in, a little late, with an apologetic bow and smile, there seemed to be no seat empty.
Riccardo rose to fetch a chair from the next room, but the Gadfly stopped him.
"Don't trouble about it," he said;
"I shall be quite comfortable here"; and crossing the room to a window beside which Gemma had placed her chair, he sat down on the sill, leaning his head indolently back against the shutter.
As he looked down at Gemma, smiling with half-shut eyes, in the subtle, sphinx-like way that gave him the look of a Leonardo da Vinci portrait, the instinctive distrust with which he inspired her deepened into a sense of unreasoning fear.
The proposal under discussion was that a pamphlet be issued setting forth the committee's views on the dearth with which Tuscany was threatened and the measures which should be taken to meet it.
The matter was a somewhat difficult one to decide, because, as usual, the committee's views upon the subject were much divided.
The more advanced section, to which Gemma, Martini, and Riccardo belonged, was in favour of an energetic appeal to both government and public to take adequate measures at once for the relief of the peasantry.
The moderate division--including, of course, Grassini--feared that an over-emphatic tone might irritate rather than convince the ministry.
"It is all very well, gentlemen, to want the people helped at once," he said, looking round upon the red-hot radicals with his calm and pitying air.
"We most of us want a good many things that we are not likely to get; but if we start with the tone you propose to adopt, the government is very likely not to begin any relief measures at all till there is actual famine.
If we could only induce the ministry to make an inquiry into the state of the crops it would be a step in advance."
Galli, in his corner by the stove, jumped up to answer his enemy.
"A step in advance--yes, my dear sir; but if there's going to be a famine, it won't wait for us to advance at that pace.
The people might all starve before we got to any actual relief."
"It would be interesting to know----" Sacconi began; but several voices interrupted him.
"Speak up; we can't hear!"
"I should think not, with such an infernal row in the street," said Galli, irritably. "Is that window shut, Riccardo?
One can't hear one's self speak!"
Gemma looked round.
"Yes," she said, "the window is quite shut.
I think there is a variety show, or some such thing, passing."
The sounds of shouting and laughter, of the tinkling of bells and trampling of feet, resounded from the street below, mixed with the braying of a villainous brass band and the unmerciful banging of a drum.
"It can't be helped these few days," said Riccardo; "we must expect noise at Christmas time. What were you saying, Sacconi?"
"I said it would be interesting to hear what is thought about the matter in Pisa and Leghorn.
Perhaps Signor Rivarez can tell us something; he has just come from there."
The Gadfly did not answer.
He was staring out of the window and appeared not to have heard what had been said.
"Signor Rivarez!" said Gemma.
She was the only person sitting near to him, and as he remained silent she bent forward and touched him on the arm.
He slowly turned his face to her, and she started as she saw its fixed and awful immobility.