a plot to ruin the people through the weakness of their leader. A
woman drawn across a man's trail. The trick is as old as the ages. Never
heard what we say in Rome?--'The man is fire, the woman is tow; then
comes the devil and puts them together.'"

David Rossi was standing face to face with Bruno, who was growing hot
and trying to laugh bitterly.

"Oh, I know what I'm saying, sir. The Prime Minister is at the bottom of
everything. David Rossi never goes to Donna Roma's house but the Baron
Bonelli knows all about it. They write to each other every day, and I've
posted her letters myself. _Her_ house is _his_ house. Carriages,
horses, servants, liveries--how else could she support it? By her art,
her sculpture?"

Bruno was frightened to the bottom of his soul, but he continued to talk
and to laugh bitterly.

"She's deceiving you, sir. Isn't it as plain as daylight? You hit her
hard, and old Vampire too, in your speech on the morning of the Pope's
Jubilee, and she's paying you out for both of them."

"That's enough, Bruno."

"All Rome knows it, and everybody will be laughing at you soon."

"You've said enough, I tell you. Go to bed."

"Oh, I know! The heart has its reasons, but it listens to none."

"Go to bed, I tell you! Isn't it sufficient that by your tittle-tattle
you caused me to wrong the lady?"

"_I_ did?"

"_You_ did."

"I did not."

"You did, and if it hadn't been for the tales you told me before I knew
her, or had ever seen her, I should never have spoken of her as I did."

"She deserved all you said of her."

"She didn't deserve one word of it, and it was your lies that made me
slander her."

Bruno's eyes flinched as if a blow had fallen on them. Then he tried to
laugh.

"Hit me again. The skin of the ass is used to blows. Only don't go too
far with me, David Rossi."

"Then don't _you_ go too far with your falsehoods and suspicion."

"Suspicion! Holy Virgin! Is it suspicion that she has had you at her
studio to make a Roman holiday for her friends and cronies? By the
saints! Suspicion!"

"Go on, if it becomes you."

"If what becomes me?"

"To eat her bread and talk against her."

"That's a lie, David Rossi, and you know it. It's my own bread I'm
eating. My labour belongs to me, and I sell it to my employer. But my
conscience belongs to God, and she cannot buy it."

David Rossi's white and angry face broke up like a snow-flake in the
sun.

"I was wrong when I said that, Bruno