'By the Host! He's in the right.' He swung to Bellarion. 'Sir, we should deserve the scorn you do not attempt to dissemble if our plans went no farther than ...'
The voices of his fellow conspirators were raised in warning. But he brushed them contemptuously aside, a bold rash man.
'A choicely posted arbalester will ...'
He got no further. This time his utterance was smothered by their anger and alarm. Barbaresco and another laid rough hands upon him, and through the general din rang the opprobrious epithets they bestowed upon him, of which 'fool' and 'madman' were the least. Amongst them they cowed him, and when it was done they turned again to Bellarion who had not stirred from where he stood, maintaining a frown of pretended perplexity between his level black brows.
It was Barbaresco, oily and crafty, who sought to dispel, to deviate any assumption Bellarion might have formed.
'Do not heed his words, sir. He is forever urging rash courses. He, too, is impatient. And impatience is a dangerous mood to bring to such matters as these.'
Bellarion was not deceived. They would have him believe that Count Spigno had intended no more than to urge a course, whereas what he perceived was that the Count had been about to disclose the course already determined, and had disclosed enough to make a guess of the remainder easy. No less did he perceive that to betray his apprehension of this fact might be never to leave that house alive. He could read it in their glances, as they waited to learn from his answer how much he took for granted.
Therefore he used a deep dissimulation. He shrugged ill-humouredly.
'Yet patience, sirs, can be exceeded until from a virtue it becomes a vice. I have more respect for an advocate of rash courses'—and he inclined his head slightly to Count Spigno—'than for those who practise an excessive caution whilst time is slipping by.'
'That, sir,' Barbaresco rebuked him, 'is because you are young. With age, if you are spared, you will come to know better.'