The cup of endurance was full, overbrimming. Once again she had passed
the night in the lock-up. Questioned as to her motives for this
particular incident, she artlessly blamed the darkness which misled
her, she said, into the regrettable delusion that it was night; "and at
night, you know. . . ."
This, as Signor Malipizzo observed with his usual legal acumen, might
pass for an explanation but nevermore for an excuse. How much longer,
he continued, with a fine Ciceronian gesture of eloquent
indignation--how much longer would the foreign colony on Nepenthe endure
the presence in their midst of such a disgrace to womanhood?
Thus spake the judge, well aware of what was expected from a man in his
position. In his heart he desired nothing less than her departure; he
was charmed with her disturbing influence; he hoped she would live a
hundred years on the island. In the first place he received occasional
gifts in kind from various grocers and wine-merchants who enriched
themselves by supplying her at preposterous prices with intoxicants,
and who thought by these subtle tactics to retain him as an ally in
their cause.
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