"I thought you were in the garden
with Madonna Giuliana."
"My Lord Gambara is there," said I.
He crimsoned and banged the table with his bony hand. "Do I not know
that?" he roared, though I could see no reason for all this heat. "And why
are you not with them?"
You are not to suppose that I was still the meek, sheepish lad who had come
to Piacenza three months ago. I had not been learning my world and
discovering Man to no purpose all this while.
"It has yet to be explained to me," said I, "under what obligation I am to
be anywhere but where I please. That firstly. Secondly--but of infinitely
lesser moment--Monna Giuliana has sent me for the manuscript of Messer
Caro's Gigli d'Oro."
I know not whether it was my cool, firm tones that quieted him. But quiet
he became.
"I...I was vexed by your interruption," he said lamely, to explain his late
choler. "Here is the thing. I found it here when I came. Messer Caro
might discover better employment for his leisure. But there, there"--he
seemed in sudden haste again. "Take it to her in God's name. She will be
impatient." I thought he sneered. "0, she will praise your diligence," he
added, and this time I was sure that he sneered.
I took it, thanked him, and left the room intrigued. And when I rejoined
them, and handed her the manuscript, the odd thing was that the subject of
their discourse having meanwhile shifted, it no longer interested her, and
she never once opened the pages she had been in such haste to have me
procure.
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