'Alas, good sir! What worth was thine estate so pledged? I had no thought but to save thee for heaven.'
'And so let loose the Duke, that Cerberus? O, I am well saved, indeed, but not for heaven! Had it not been for the good Jacopo taking me in and hiding me, I had been roasting unhousel'd by now.'
'Tassino, thou dost the Duke a wrong. 'Twas thy fear distorted thy peril. He is a changed man, and most inclined to charity and justice.'
Tassino let his jaw drop, affecting astonishment.
'Since when?'
'Since the day of thy disgrace.'
The other shook his head, with a smile of growing effrontery.
'Why, look you, Messer Bembo,' he said: 'you represent his conscience, they tell me, and should know. Yet may not a man and his conscience, like ill-mated consorts, be on something less than speaking terms?'
He laughed, half insolent, half nervous, as Bernardo regarded him in silence with earnest eyes.
'Supposing,' said he, 'you were to represent, of your holy innocence and credulity, a little more and a little sweeter than the truth? Think'st thou I should have dared reissue from my hiding, were Galeazzo still here to represent his own? If I had ever thought to, there was that buried a week ago in the walls yonder would have stopped me effectively.'