“I heard it not; some commission held me at the arsenal; San Marco be thanked that it is over!”

“Ebbene, old Penelli—­gouty so that he can scarce move—­hath a visit from our great mathematician Ghetaldo, who findeth with our magnificent patron of letters a friar to whom Penelli showeth such honor—­limping to the door with him, as if he were a prince—­that Ghetaldo, wrathful at this foolish waste over a friar, asketh his name with scorn.  And is not better pleased when Penelli telleth that Fra Paolo is the ’miracle of the age in every science.’  ‘So, I will prove it,’ saith Penelli, ’for verily the world knoweth the great Ghetaldo for a mathematician!  Come, then, with problems the most difficult thou canst prepare, on a day it may please thee to name, and meet Fra Paolo at my table, without warning to him.’ Ecco!  Penelli is subtle; great satisfaction and much labor on the part of our mathematician.  Enter Fra Paolo,—­simple, unadvised,—­solves the propositions at a hearing.  ‘Miraculous!’ cries the superb Ghetaldo, gentle as a lamb!  A friendship for life, and Fra Paolo is the teacher!  But it is more wonderful to hear the tales of how he preacheth to the people here, in the Gesuiti.  Let us follow, for he giveth them not many minutes, for fear of wearying them.  We need lift our mantles high, for the pavement is like a market garden of Mazzorbo, with broken bits from the women’s baskets—­Faugh!”

The splendid senators seldom mingled in such a crowd, except at guarded distances, to make a pageant for it; it was picturesque, shabby, malodorous, composed chiefly of young women with bright-eyed babies and baskets emitting unctuous savors of frittola and garlic; now and then an old peasant who could not be tranquil until she had heard Fra Paolo speak was escorted by a rebellious grandson, bribed to quiet by the promise of a soldo for his little game of chance; occasionally a man, impatient to have done with it all and get out on the canal again, moved restlessly from place to place; only here and there the dim light showed a face pathetic in its questioning, to whom the answer meant life or death.

“What hath a man of such rare powers and learning to do with these simple ones—­a man whose time is precious to the State?”

The noble senators withdrew a little from the crowd to watch the scene, as they put the question to each other; their servants brought them chairs within the shadow of a column.

They did not know that few are great enough in an age of superstition to hold a conscience uncontrolled by traditions, and a primitive faith simple as a child’s, with the tenacity of a strong man; there had been nothing in his labors at the Senate to call forth this most sacred side of his reserved nature, and they did not understand that it was to this he owed much of the marvelous poise of will and judgment which kept him unspoiled in spite of intellectual gifts that would have ruined him without his absolute dependence on the One Supreme.  But on this sacred side alone was there any entrance to his emotions.