He had locked himself in, as was his frequent
habit when at his studies, but he opened to my knock. I stalked in,
unbuckled my sword, and set it in a corner. Then I turned to him.
"You are doing your wife a shameful wrong, sir doctor," said I, with all
the directness of youth and indiscretion.
He stared at me as if I had struck him--as he might have stared, rather, at
a child who had struck him, undecided whether to strike back for the
child's good, or to be amused and smile.
"Ah!" he said at last. "She has been talking to you?" And he clasped his
hands behind him and stood before me, his head thrust forward, his legs
wide apart, his long gown, which was open, clinging to his ankles.
"No," said I. "I have been thinking."
"In that case nothing will surprise me," he said in his sour, contemptuous
manner. "And so you have concluded...?"
"That you are harbouring an infamous suspicion."
"Your assurance that it is infamous would offend me did it not comfort me,"
he sneered. "And what, pray, is this suspicion?
"You suspect that...that--0 God! I can't utter the thing."
"Take courage," he mocked me. And he thrust his head farther forward. He
looked singularly like a vulture in that moment.
"You suspect that Messer Gambara...that Messer Gambara and Madonna.
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