Basil paused for a moment, after which he continued with a sigh:
"It is too late! The Church is to be purified. Not even the pale shade of Marozia will henceforth be permitted to haunt the crypts of Castel San Angelo—merely for the sake of decorum. There is nothing less well bred than memory!"
For a moment they relapsed into silence, watching the shifting crowds, then Basil continued:
"Compared with this virtuous boredom the last days of Ugo of Tuscany were a carnival. One could at least speed the travails of some one who required swift absolution."
"Can you contrive to bring about this happy state?" queried Il Gobbo.
"It is always the unexpurgated that happens," Basil replied sardonically.
"I hope to advance in your school," Il Gobbo interposed with a smile.
"I have long had you in mind. If you are in favor with yourself you will become an apt pupil. Remember! He who is dead is dead and long live the survivor."
"In very truth, my lord, breath is the first and last thing we draw—" rejoined the bravo, evidently not relishing the thought that death might be standing unseen at his elbow.
"Who would end one's days in odious immaculacy," Basil interposed grandiloquently, "even though you will not incur that reproach from those who know you from report, or who have visited your haunts? But to the point. There are certain forces at work in Rome which make breathing in this fetid air a rather cumbersome process."