"Bruno!" cried Rossi in a stern voice, "what right have you to talk to me like this?"
Bruno was frightened at what he had said, but he tried to carry it off with a look of passion.
"Right? The right of a friend, sir, who can't stand by and see you betrayed. Yes, betrayed, that's the word for it. Betrayed! Betrayed! It's a plot to ruin the people through the weakness of their leader. A woman drawn across a man's trail. The trick is as old as the ages. Never heard what we say in Rome?—'The man is fire, the woman is tow; then comes the devil and puts them together.'"
David Rossi was standing face to face with Bruno, who was growing hot and trying to laugh bitterly.
"Oh, I know what I'm saying, sir. The Prime Minister is at the bottom of everything. David Rossi never goes to Donna Roma's house but the Baron Bonelli knows all about it. They write to each other every day, and I've posted her letters myself. Her house is his house. Carriages, horses, servants, liveries—how else could she support it? By her art, her sculpture?"
Bruno was frightened to the bottom of his soul, but he continued to talk and to laugh bitterly.
"She's deceiving you, sir. Isn't it as plain as daylight? You hit her hard, and old Vampire too, in your speech on the morning of the Pope's Jubilee, and she's paying you out for both of them."
"That's enough, Bruno."
"All Rome knows it, and everybody will be laughing at you soon."
"You've said enough, I tell you. Go to bed."