Spigno laughed, and released the arm he held.
'I for one am answered. I told you from the first I did not believe it.'
Casella, however, hung on fiercely. 'I'll need a clear answer before I ...'
'Give me air, man,' cried Bellarion impatiently, and wrenched his arm free. 'No need to maul me. I'll not run. There are seven of you to prevent me, and reflection may cool your humours. Reflect, for instance, that, if I were for running, I should not have come back.'
'You tell us what you would not or did not do. We ask you what you did,' Barbaresco insisted.
'I'll tell you yet another thing I would not have done if my aim had been betrayal. I should not have gone openly to court so that you might hear of my presence there.'
'The very argument I employed,' Spigno reminded them, with something of Bellarion's own scorn in his manner now. 'Let the boy tell his tale.'
They muttered among themselves. Bellarion crossed the room under their black looks, moving with the fearless air of a man strong in the sense of his own integrity. He slid into a chair.
'There is nothing to tell that is not self-evident already. I went to carry your message to the Princess Valeria; to point out to her the position of checkmate in which you hold her; to make her realize that being committed to this enterprise, she cannot now either draw back or dictate to us the means by which our aims are to be reached. All this, I rejoice to tell you, I have happily accomplished.'
Again it was Barbaresco who was their spokesman. 'All this we may believe when you tell us why you chose to go to court to do it, and how, being what you represent yourself to be, you succeeded in gaining admission.'