It was a place beloved by Gian Maria for the material comforts that it
offered him, and so he turned it to a score of vulgar purposes of his
own, yet never to that for which it was equipped, being an utter stranger
to letters and ignorant as a ploughboy.

Ensconced in a great chair of crimson leather, at a board overladen with
choice viands and sparkling with crystal flagons and with vessels and
dishes of gold and enamel, Francesco found his cousin, and the air that
had been heavy once with the scholarly smell of parchments and musty
tomes was saturated now with pungent odours of the table.

In stature Gian Maria was short and inclining, young though he was, to
corpulency. His face was round and pale and flabby; his eyes blue and
beady; his mouth sensual and cruel. He was dressed in a suit of lilac
velvet, trimmed with lynx fur, and slashed, Spanish fashion, in the
sleeves, to show the shirt of fine Rheims linen underneath. About his
neck hung a gold chain, bearing an Agnus Dei, which contained a relic of
the True Cross--for Gian Maria pushed his devoutness to great lengths.

His welcome of Francesco was more effusive than its wont. He bade the
two servants who attended him to lay a plate for his illustrious cousin,
and when Aquila shortly yet courteously declined, with the assurance that
he had dined already, the Duke insisted that, at least, he should drink a
Cup of Malvasia. When out of a vessel of beaten gold they had filled a
goblet for the Count, his Highness bade the servants go, and relaxed--if,
indeed, so much may be said of one who never knew much dignity--before
his visitor.

"I hear," said Aquila, when the first compliments were spent, "strange
stories of a conspiracy in your Duchy, and on the walls at the Gate of