The Bravo took the paper, and held the superscription again to the light.
"That is not so. Though unlearned, necessity has taught me to know when I am meant."
"Diamine! That is just my own case, Signore. Were the letter for me, now the old should not know its young quicker than I would come at the truth."
"Then thou canst not read?"
"I never pretended to the art. The little said was merely about writing. Learning, as you well understand, Master Jacopo, is divided into reading, writing, and figures; and a man may well understand one, without knowing a word of the others. It is not absolutely necessary to be a bishop to have a shaved head, or a Jew to wear a beard."
"Thou would'st have done better to have said this at once; go, I will think of the matter."
Gino gladly turned away, but he had not left the other many paces before he saw a female form gliding behind the pedestal of one of the granite columns. Moving swiftly in a direction to uncover this seeming spy, he saw at once that Annina had been a witness of his interview with the Bravo.
Chapter IV.
"'T will make me think
The world is full of rubs, and that my fortune
Runs 'gainst the bias."RICHARD THE SECOND.