This, too, was puzzling, even to one who was beginning to know his world
But I was not done with riddles. For presently out came Fifanti himself,
looking, if possible, yellower and more sour and lean than usual. He was
arrayed in his long, rusty gown, and there were the usual shabby slippers
on his long, lean feet. He was ever a man of most indifferent personal
habits.
"Ah, Astorre," his wife greeted him. "My Lord Cardinal brings you good
tidings."
"Does he so?" quoth Fifanti, sourly as I thought; and he looked at the
legate as though his excellency were the very reverse of a happy harbinger.
"You will rejoice, I think, doctor," said the smiling prelate, "to hear
that I have letters from my Lord Pier Luigi appointing you one of the ducal
secretaries. And this, I doubt not, will be followed, on his coming
hither, by an appointment to his council. Meanwhile, the stipend is three
hundred ducats, and the work is light."
There followed a long and baffling silence, during which the doctor grew
first red, then pale, then red again, and Messer Gambara stood with his
scarlet cloak sweeping about his shapely limbs, sniffing his pomander and
smiling almost insolently into the other's face; and some of the insolence
of his look, I thought, was reflected upon the pale, placid countenance of
Giuliana.
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