Every woman who loves a man and is anxious about him is sure that if she
can be alone with him for a moment, he will tell her the truth about his
condition. The experience of thousands of years has not taught women
that if there is one person in the world from whom a man will try to
conceal his ills and aches, it is the woman he loves, because he would
rather suffer everything than give her pain.
"I feel perfectly well," said Zorzi.
"Indeed you are not!" answered Marietta, energetically. "If you were
perfectly well you would be on your feet, doing your work yourself. Why
will you not tell me?"
"I mean, I have no pain," said Zorzi.
"You had great pain just now, when you tried to move," retorted
Marietta. "You know it. Why do you try to deceive me? Do you think I
cannot see it in your face?"
"It is nothing. It comes now and then, and goes away again almost at
once."
Marietta had come close to him while she was speaking. One hand hung by
her side within his reach. He longed to take it, with such a longing as
he had never felt for anything in his life; he resisted with all the
strength he had left. But he remembered that he had held her hand in his
yesterday, and the memory was a force in itself, outside of him, drawing
him in spite of himself, lifting his arm when he commanded it to lie
still.
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