’Certainly not; if you are devising means of subsistence for the widows and orphans of the men who will straggle out to be slaughtered to-night,’ said Luciano; ‘you have occupation in that case.’

’I will do my best to provide for them,’—­the count persisted in his air of humility, ’though it is a question with some whether idiots should live.’  He paused effectively, and sucked in a soft smile of self-approbation at the stroke.  Then he pursued:  ’We meet the day after to-morrow.  The Pope’s Mouth is closed.  We meet here at nine in the morning.  The next day at eleven at Farugino’s, the barber’s, in Monza.  The day following at Camerlata, at eleven likewise.  Those who attend will be made aware of the dispositions for the week, and the day we shall name for the rising.  It is known to you all, that without affixing a stigma on our new prima-donna, we exclude her from any share in this business.  All the Heads have been warned that we yield this night to the Austrians.  Gentlemen, I cannot be more explicit.  I wish that I could please you better.’

‘Oh, by all means,’ said Pietro Cardi:  ’but patience is the pestilence; I shall roam in quest of adventure.  Another quiet week is a tremendous trial.’

He crossed foils with Leone Rufo, but finding no stop to the drawn ‘swish’ of the steel, he examined the end of his weapon with a lengthening visage, for it was buttonless.  Ammiani burst into laughter at the spontaneous boyishness in the faces of the pair of ambitious lads.  They both offered him one of the rapiers upon equal terms.  Count Medole’s example of intemperate vanity was spoiling them.

‘You know my opinion,’ Ammiani said to the count.  ’I told you last night, and I tell you again to-day, that Barto Rizzo is guilty of gross misconduct, and that you must plead the same to a sort of excuseable treason.  Count Medole, you cannot wind and unwind a conspiracy like a watch.  Who is the head of this one?  It is the man Barto Rizzo.  He took proceedings before he got you to sanction them.  You may be the vessel, but he commands, or at least, he steers it.’

The count waited undemonstratively until Ammiani had come to an end.  ‘You speak, my good Ammiani, with an energy that does you credit,’ he said, ’considering that it is not in your own interest, but another person’s.  Remember, I can bear to have such a word as treason ascribed to my acts.’

Fresh visitors, more or less mixed, in the conspiracy, and generally willing to leave the management of it to Count Medole, now entered the saloon.  These were Count Rasati, Angelo Dovili, a Piedmontese General, a Tuscan duke, and one or two aristocratic notabilities and historic nobodies.  They were hostile to the Chief whom Luciano and Carlo revered and obeyed.  The former lit a cigarette, and saying to his friend, ’Do you breakfast with your mother?  I will come too,’ slipped his hand on Ammiani’s arm; they walked out indolently together, with the smallest shade of an appearance of tolerating scorn for those whom they left behind.