Jacopa bowed a negative.
“My name may change thy thought,” the youth remarked, as he approached Jacopa, and, as the latter inclined his ear, whispered a single sentence to him.
Jacopa Amedi started back in amazement, and gazed for a moment as if he had been paralyzed.
“Thou! thou!” he exclaimed, as a grim smile settled upon his features.
The stranger placed his gloved finger upon his lip to advise caution; and Jacopa, warned by the signal, restrained the expressions to which he had been about to give utterance.
“This,” he said, as he took the other’s hand and led him forward, while a gloomy frown supplanted the smile upon his own countenance, “this is as it should be; there is nobility enough in the act to make thee a worthy partaker in our deliberations.”
Saying this, he made a place for him among the rest, and vouched to the company for his right to be present.
The consultation was continued, but Jacopa Amedi ceased to take the lead in it. The stranger, as if by magic, exerted a controlless influence over every one. He spoke, and all listened with breathless attention to his lava-like words. He proposed and his suggestions were adopted without a dissenting voice. He named himself the leader of an enterprise in contemplation, and he was selected by acclamation.
“Who,” he asked, after an hour had been spent in consultation, “is informed of the period when this faithless lord leads his dainty bride to the altar?”
“I have taken care to learn that,” Baptista Amedi replied. “An hour after vespers the priest pronounces the marriage sacrament in the chapel of the palace.”