When the Gadfly, strongly guarded, entered the
room where Montanelli was writing at a table
covered with papers, a sudden recollection came
over him, of a hot midsummer afternoon when he
had sat turning over manuscript sermons in a study
much like this. The shutters had been closed, as
they were here, to keep out the heat, and a fruitseller's
voice outside had called: "Fragola! Fragola!"
He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes
and set his mouth in a smile.
Montanelli looked up from his papers.
"You can wait in the hall," he said to the
guards.
"May it please Your Eminence," began the sergeant,
in a lowered voice and with evident nervousness,
"the colonel thinks that this prisoner is
dangerous and that it would be better------"
A sudden flash came into Montanelli's eyes.
"You can wait in the hall," he repeated quietly;
and the sergeant, saluting and stammering excuses
with a frightened face, left the room with his men.
"Sit down, please," said the Cardinal, when the
door was shut.
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