Then all in a moment the boy was sobbing before him.
'O Carlo! dear Carlo! I would the Duke were returned!'
His grief and helplessness moved the other to a frenzy. His chest heaved, he caught at his throat, struggling vainly for utterance of the fears which had of late been tormenting him without definite reason. Seeing his state, Bernardo sought to propitiate it with a smile that trembled out of tears.
'Nay, mind me not—a child to cry at a shadow.'
Lanti choked, and found voice at length.
'The Duke? Monstrous! Call'st thou for him? Forget'st Capello? Art changed indeed.'
'Alas!' cried the boy, 'no change in me. I think only of a more ruling tyranny than mine. Pitiless himself, he made pity sweet in others. I've converted 'em from deeds to words, that's all.'
'The Duke!'
'I begin to see. Thou warned'st me, I remember. The fashion of me passes, like thy shoe's long beaks. Yesterday they were a span; to-day they're shrunk by half; to-morrow, mayhap, ye'll trim them from your feet and run on goat's hooves.'
'Thou ravest. 'Tis for thee, being Duke-deputy, to trim us.'