to rest, and repeating her complaints of a headache, withdrew into her bedroom.
Fabio remained in the studio. He felt a strange confused sensation incomprehensible to himself Muzzio's stay under his roof, to which he, Fabio, had himself urgently invited him, was irksome to him. And not that he was jealous — could any one have been jealous of Valeria ! — but he did not recognise his former comrade in his friend. All that was strange, unknown and new that Muzzio had brought with him from those distant lands — and which seemed to have entered into his very flesh and blood — all these magical feats, songs, strange drinks, this dumb Malay, even the spicy fragrance diffused by Muzzio's garments, his hair, his breath — all this inspired in Fabio a sensation akin to distrust, possibly even to timidity. And why did that Malay waiting at table stare with such disagreeable intentness at him, Fabio? Really any one might suppose that he understood Italian. Muzzio had said of him that in losing his tongue, this Malay had made a great sacrifice, and in return he was now possessed of great power. What sort of power? and how could he have obtained it at the price of his tongue? All this was very strange ! very incomprehensible! Fabio went into his wife's room; she was lying on the bed, dressed, but
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