"And the women are always the worst," concluded his father.

They sat in silence for some moments. And then the count spoke again in
his odd, detached way, as if he were contemplating his environments from
afar.

"There was a man in Sartene who had an enemy. He was a shoemaker, and
could therefore work at his trade indoors. He never crossed his threshold
for sixteen years. One day they told him his enemy was dead, that the
funeral was for the same afternoon. It passed his door, and when it had
gone by, he stepped out, after sixteen, years, to watch it, and--Paff! He
twisted himself round as he writhed on the ground, and there was his
enemy, laughing, with the smoke still at the muzzle. The funeral was a
trick. No; I shall not believe that Mattei Perucca is dead until the Abbe
Susini tells me that he has seen the body. Not that it would make any
difference. I should not go outside the door. I am accustomed to this
life now."

He sat with his hands idly crossed on his knee, and looked at nothing in
particular. Nothing could arouse him now from his apathy, except perhaps
the culture of carnations--certainly not the arrival of the son whom he
had never seen. He had that air of waiting without expectancy which is
assuredly the dungeon mark, and a moral mourning worn for dead Hope.

Lory contemplated him as a strange old man who interested him despite
himself. There was pity, but nothing filial in his feelings. For filial
love only grows out of propinquity and a firm respect which must keep
pace with the growing demands of a daily increasing comprehension.