“And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a
change.”
“A change?”
He continued to look at me calmly. “It would be difficult for me,” he
explained, “to find employment in a new place.”
“But why should you leave here?”
“I shall have to,” he returned deliberately, “if you persist in recognizing
in me your former friend Count Siviano.”
“Roberto!”
He lifted his hand. “Egidio,” he said, “I am alone here, and without
friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a
consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of
the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?”
“Roberto,” I cried, “it is too dreadful to understand!”
“Be a man, Egidio,” said he with a touch of impatience. “The choice lies
with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions,
to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends
together, in God’s name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be
off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?”
I was on my knees at his side in an instant. “We must never be parted!” I
cried. “Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not
always obeyed you?”