"Then don't you go too far with your falsehoods and suspicion."
"Suspicion! Holy Virgin! Is it suspicion that she has had you at her studio to make a Roman holiday for her friends and cronies? By the saints! Suspicion!"
"Go on, if it becomes you."
"If what becomes me?"
"To eat her bread and talk against her."
"That's a lie, David Rossi, and you know it. It's my own bread I'm eating. My labour belongs to me, and I sell it to my employer. But my conscience belongs to God, and she cannot buy it."
David Rossi's white and angry face broke up like a snow-flake in the sun.
"I was wrong when I said that, Bruno, and I ask your pardon."
"Do you say that, sir? And after I've insulted you?"
David Rossi held out his hand, and Bruno clasped it.