should we give you the appointment?" smiled the Cardinal, with
a smile that was full of significance.

"It is what the town will be asking, no doubt," said Messer Fifanti. "I
hope you will be able to satisfy its curiosity, my lord."

And on that he turned, and stalked off again, very white and trembling,
as I could perceive.

My Lord Gambara laughed carelessly again, and over the pale face of
Monna Giuliana there stole a slow smile, the memory of which was to be
hateful to me soon, but which at the moment went to increase my already
profound mystification.

CHAPTER III. PREUX-CHEVALIER

In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods than
ever. Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and not
a day passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under his
guidance, I was wrestling.

And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at times
he was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion of
the serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self. He watched
her curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which she
presented a calm front and a patience almost saintly. He was as a man
with some mighty burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear it
or cast it off.

Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful a
creature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you consider
what a power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered to
my erstwhile terror. She confided in me a little in those days, but ever
with a most saintly resignation. She had been sold into wedlock, she
admitted, with a man who might have been her father, and she confessed
to finding her lot a cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one who
intends none the less to bear her cross with fortitude.

And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing. We had been reading
together, she and I, as was become our custom. She had fetched me a
volume of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by side
on the marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shoulder
touching mine, the fragrance of her all about me.

She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rare
justice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair was
confined in a golden net that was set with gems--a gift from my Lord
Gambara. Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterday
between Giuliana a