'Thou dearest, most loving of babes!' he cried rapturously; 'sweet saint of all to me! What! did I twit thee, mine emancipator, with my curse to thralldom? Loves Esau, quotha! No cant his creed. Child, thou art asphodel to that cactus. Put thy foot on this mouth that could so slander thee!'
'Poor Cicca!' said Bembo, gently disengaging himself. 'Thou rebukest sweetly my idle curiosity.'
'Curiosity!' cried the other. 'Would the angels always showed as much! Thou art welcome to all of me I can tell:—as, for example, that my mother—exitus acta probat—was a fool, a sweet, pretty, vicious fool; and yet, after all, not such a fool as, having borne, to acknowledge me.'
'Poor wretch! Why not?'
'Why not? Why, for the reason Pasiphae concealed her share in the Minotaur. Motley is the labyrinth of Milan. My father was a bull.'
'Well, I am answered.'
'Ah! thou think'st I jest. Relatively—relatively only, sir, I assure thee. Hast ever heard speak of Filippo Maria, the last of the Visconti?'
'Little, alas! to his credit.'
'I will answer in my person to that. He was uglier than any bull—a monster so hideous as to be attractive to a certain order of frailty. I inclined his way. Perhaps that was my salvation. The child most interests the parent whose features it reflects. It is bad-luck to break a mirror; and so I was spared—for the labyrinth.'
'O infamous! He made thee his jester?'