"Excepting yourself, we are all as bad as we can be. What is the use of denying it?"
"We are not all bad, and I do not choose to be made an exception of. I am just like other people, or I should be if I were placed as they are. I not only am sure that you are not a bad man, but I am quite convinced that in some ways you are a very good one."
"What an odd mistake!"
"Why do you persistently try to make yourself out worse than you are, and to show your worst side to the world?"
"I suppose that is the side most apparent to myself," answered Ghisleri. "I cannot help seeing it."
"Because you are not Launcelot, you take yourself for Cæsar Borgia—"
"That would be flattering myself too much. Borgia was by far the more intelligent of the two. Say Thersites."
"I know nothing about Thersites."
"Then say Judas. There seems to be very little difference of opinion as to that personage's moral obliquity," Ghisleri laughed.
"Very well," said Laura, gravely. "I suppose you have no doubt, then, that Judas would have acted as you did in your affair with Don Gianforte. He would, of course, have submitted to insult rather than break a promise, and would have allowed—"