He was serenely confident of his policy—waved all protest aside.
'I see my way: the hook is baited: let him bite.'
'Bite?' growled Visconti. 'And what about our occupation here?'
'Why, 'tis testing mail, nothing more. Is a lay-figure in an armoury so strange?'
'Ay, when 'tis a portrait-model.'
'O glowing tribute to my art! I designed the doll, true. You make me look down, sir, and simper and bite my finger. Yet my mind misgives me thou flatterest. A portrait-model, yes; but will he recognise of whom?'
'The knave may—the shrewder fool of the pair.'
'The greater fool will testify to me? O happy artist! Well, if he do, I will still account him naught. He will take the bait also. The shadow swims and bites with the fish. Besides, should this befall, 'twill save mayhap a world of preliminaries. Remember that "hop of grievance." He comes, it seems, in a mood to jump with ours. Let them in.'
Like souls salvaged from a wreck they came—the Fool propping the Saint—staggering in by the door. Grief and storm and weariness had robbed the boy of speculation, almost of his senses. His drenched hair hung in ropes, his wild eyes stared beneath like a frightened doe's, his clothes slopped on his limbs.
Narcisso struggled with the door and closed it.