You had better go and see my father now, and then you can rest yourselves. You must be tired after your journey. To-night we have here a great gathering, where you will meet your old friends. The Count has deigned to accept my invitation.'
'Deigned?' said Matteo, lifting his eyebrows and looking at his cousin.
Checco smiled bitterly.
'Times have changed since you were here, Matteo' he said; 'the Forlivesi are subjects and courtiers now.'
Putting aside Matteo's further questions, he bowed to me and left us.
'I wonder what it is?' said Matteo. 'What did you think of him?'
I had examined Checco d'Orsi curiously—a tall dark man, with full beard and moustache, apparently about forty. There was a distinct likeness between him and Matteo: they both had the same dark hair and eyes; but Matteo's face was broader, the bones more prominent, and the skin rougher from his soldier's life. Checco was thinner and graver, he looked a great deal more talented; Matteo, as I often told him, was not clever.
'He was very amiable,' I said, in reply to the question.
'A little haughty, but he means to be courteous. He is rather oppressed with his dignity of head of the family.'
'But his father is still alive.'
'Yes, but he's eighty-five, and he's as deaf as a post and as blind as a bat; so he remains quietly in his room while Checco pulls the strings, so that we poor devils have to knuckle under and do as he bids us.'
'I'm sure that must be very good for you,' I said. 'I'm curious to know why Checco talks of the Count as he did; when I was here last they were bosom friends. However, let us go and drink, having done our duty.'
We went to the inn at which we had left our horses and ordered wine.
'Give us your best, my fat friend,' cried Matteo to mine host. 'This gentleman is a stranger, and does not know what wine is; he was brought up on the sickly juice of Città di Castello.'
'You live at Città di Castello?' asked the innkeeper.
'I wish I did,' I answered.
'He was ejected from his country for his country's good,' remarked Matteo.
'That is not true,' I replied, laughing. 'I left of my own free will.'
'Galloping as hard as you could, with four-and-twenty horsemen at your heels.'
'Precisely! And so little did they want me to go, that when I thought a change of air would suit me they sent a troop of horse to induce me to return.'
'Your head would have made a pretty ornament stuck on a pike in the grand piazza.'
'The thought amuses you,' I answered, 'but the comedy of it did not impress me at the time.'
I remembered the occasion when news was brought me that the Vitelli, the tyrant of Castello, had signed a warrant for my arrest; whereupon, knowing the rapid way he had of dealing with his enemies, I had bidden farewell to my hearth and home with somewhat indecent haste.... But the old man had lately died, and his son, proceeding to undo all his father's deeds, had called back the Fuorusciti, and strung up from the Palace windows such of his father's friends as had not had time to escape. I had come to Forli with Matteo, on my way home to take possession of my confiscated property, hoping to find that the intermediate proprietor, who was dangling at a rope's end some hundred feet from the ground, had made sundry necessary improvements.
'Well, what do you think of our wine?' said Matteo. 'Compare it with that of Città di Castello.'
'I really haven't tasted it yet,' I said, pretending to smile agreeably. 'Strange wines I always drink at a gulp—like medicine.'
'Brutta bestia!' said Matteo. 'You are no judge.'
'It's passable,' I said, laughing, having sipped it with great deliberation.
Matteo shrugged his shoulders.
'These foreigners!' he said scornfully. 'Come here, fat man,' he called to the innkeeper. 'Tell me how Count Girolamo and the gracious Caterina are progressing? When I left Forli the common people struggled to lick the ground they trod on.'
The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders.
'Gentlemen of my profession have to be careful in what they say.'
'Don't be a fool, man; I am not a spy.'
'Well, sir, the common people no longer struggle to lick the ground the Count treads on.'
'I see!'
'You understand, sir. Now that his father is dead—'
'When I was here last Sixtus was called his uncle.'
'Ah, they say he was too fond of him not to be his father, but, of course, I know nothing. Far be it from me to say anything in disparagement of his Holiness, past or present.'
'However, go on.'
'Well, sir, when the Pope died the Count Girolamo found himself short of money—and so the taxes that he had taken off he put on again.'
'And the result is—'
'Well, the people are beginning to murmur about his extravagance; and they say that Caterina behaves as if she were a queen; whereas we all know that she is only the bastard of old Sforza of Milan. But, of course, it has nothing to do with me!'
Matteo and I were beginning to feel sleepy, for we had been riding hard all night; and we went upstairs, giving orders to be called in time for the night's festivity. We were soon fast asleep.
In the evening Matteo came to me, and began examining my clothes.
'I have been considering, Filippo,' he said, 'that it behoves me on my first appearance before the eyes of my numerous lady loves to cut the best figure I can.'
'I quite agree with you,' I answered; 'but I don't see what you are doing with my clothes.'
'Nobody knows you, and it is unimportant how you look; and, as you have some very nice things here, I am going to take advantage of your kindness and—'
'You're not going to take my clothes!' I said, springing out of bed. Matteo gathered up in his arms various garments and rushed out of the room, slamming the door and locking it on the outside, so that I was left shut in, helpless.
I shouted abuse after him, but he went away laughing, and I had to manage as best I could with what he had left me. In half an hour he came to the door. 'Do you want to come out?' he said.
'Of course I do,' I answered, kicking the panel.
'Will you promise not to be violent?'
I hesitated.
'I shan't let you out unless you do.'
'Very well!' I answered, laughing.
Matteo opened the door and stood bolt upright on the threshold, decked out from head to foot in my newest
