Caesar received him leaning against a tall chimney-piece, no longer wearing his cardinal’s robe and hat, but a doublet of black velvet slashed with satin of the same colour.  One hand toyed mechanically with his gloves, while the other rested an the handle of a poisoned dagger which never left his side.  This was the dress he kept for his nocturnal expeditions, so Michelotto felt no surprise at that; but his eyes burned with a flame more gloomy than their want, and his cheeks, generally pale, were now livid.  Michelotto had but to cast one look upon his master to see that Caesar and he were about to share some terrible enterprise.

He signed to him to shut the door.  Michelotto obeyed.  Then, after a moment’s silence, during which the eyes of Borgia seemed to burn into the soul of the bravo, who with a careless air stood bareheaded before ham, he said, in a voice whose slightly mocking tone gave the only sign of his emotion.

“Michelotto, how do you think this dress suits me?”

Accustomed as he was to his master’s tricks of circumlocution, the bravo was so far from expecting this question, that at first he stood mute, and only after a few moments’ pause was able to say: 

“Admirably, monsignore; thanks to the dress, your Excellency has the appearance as well as the true spirit of a captain.”

“I am glad you think so,” replied Caesar.  “And now let me ask you, do you know who is the cause that, instead of wearing this dress, which I can only put an at night, I am forced to disguise myself in the daytime in a cardinal’s robe and hat, and pass my time trotting about from church to church, from consistory to consistory, when I ought properly to be leading a magnificent army in the battlefield, where you would enjoy a captain’s rank, instead of being the chief of a few miserable sbirri?”

“Yes, monsignore,” replied Michelotto, who had divined Caesar’s meaning at his first word; “the man who is the cause of this is Francesco, Duke of Gandia, and Benevento, your elder brother.”

“Do you know,” Caesar resumed, giving no sign of assent but a nod and a bitter smile,—­“do you know who has all the money and none of the genius, who has the helmet and none of the brains, who has the sword and no hand to wield it?”

“That too is the Duke of Gandia,” said Michelotto.

“Do you know;” continued Caesar, “who is the man whom I find continually blocking the path of my ambition, my fortune, and my love?”

“It is the same, the Duke of Gandia,” said Michelotto.

“And what do you think of it?” asked Caesar.

“I think he must die,” replied the man coldly.