ht smiling
unconsciousness, while the low notes of triumph dropped from his lips
into the silence.

Tito looked up with a slight start, and his lips turned pale, but he
seemed hardly more moved than Giannozzo Pucci, who had looked up at the
same moment--or even than several others round the table; for that
sallow deep-lined face with the hatred in its eyes seemed a terrible
apparition across the wax-lit ease and gaiety. And Tito quickly
recovered some self-command. "A mad old man--he looks like it--he _is_
mad!" was the instantaneous thought that brought some courage with it;
for he could conjecture no inward change in Baldassarre since they had
met before. He just let his eyes fall and laid the lute on the table
with apparent ease; but his fingers pinched the neck of the lute hard
while he governed his head and his glance sufficiently to look with an
air of quiet appeal towards Bernardo Rucellai, who said at once--

"Good man, what is your business? What is the important declaration
that you have to make?"

"Messer Bernardo Rucellai, I wish you and your honourable friends to
know in what sort of company you are sitting. There is a traitor among
you."

There was a general movement of alarm. Every one present, except Tito,
thought of political danger and not of private injury.

Baldassarre began to speak as if he were thoroughly assured of what he
had to say; but, in spite of his long preparation for this moment, there
was the tremor of overmastering excitement in his voice. His passion
shook him. He went on, but he did not say what he had meant to say. As
he fixed his eyes on Tito again the passionate words were like blows--
they defied premeditation.

"There is a man among you who is a scoundrel, a liar, a robber. I was a
father to him. I took him from beggary when he was a child. I reared
him, I cherished him, I taught him, I made him a scholar. My head has
lain hard that his might have a pillow. And he left me in slavery; he
sold the gems that were mine, and when I came again, he denied me."

The last words had been uttered with almost convulsed agitation, and
Baldassarre paused, trembling. All glances were turned on Tito, who was
now looking straight at Baldassarre. It was a moment of desperation
that annihilated all feeling in him, except the determination to risk
anything for the chance of escape. And he gathered confidence from the
agitation by which Baldassarre was evidently shaken. He