years?" he asked, and his lean forefinger pointed at my hideous motley of
red and black and yellow.

I flushed and hung my head, and--as if to mock that very expression of my
shame--the bells on my cap gave forth a silvery tinkle at the movement.

"Excellency, spare me," I murmured. "Did you know all my miserable story
you would be merciful. Did you know with what joy I turned my back on
the Court of Pesaro--"

"Aye," he broke in mockingly, "when Giovanni Sforza threatened to have
you hanged for the overboldness of your tongue. Not until then did it
occur to you to turn from the shameful life in which the best years of
your manhood were being wasted. There! Just now I commended your
truthfulness; but the truth that dwells in you is no more, it seems,
than the truth we may look for in the mouth of Folly. At heart, I fear,
you are a hypocrite, Messer Biancomonte; the worst form of hypocrite--a
hypocrite to your own self."

"Did your Excellency know all!" I cried.

"I know enough," he answered, with stern sorrow; "enough to make me
marvel that the son of Ettore Biancomonte of Biancomonte should play
the Fool to Costanzo Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Oh you will tell me that
you went there for revenge, to seek to right the wrong his father did
your father."

"It was, it was!" I cried, with heated vehemence. "Be flames everlasting
the dwelling of my soul if any other motive drove me to this shameful
trade."