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No one who reads the account of Gian Battista's fate can doubt the sincerity of Cardan's remorse for that neglect of the boy's youthful training which helped to bring him to ruin, and the care which he bestowed upon his grandson Fazio proved that his regret was not of that sort which exhales itself in empty words.
"I am her representative, her sometime Provost of Roccaleone." "Who are you?" quoth the Duke, struck by a familiar note in that mocking voice. "Francesco del Falco, Count of Aquila." "By God! You!" "An age of marvels, is it not?" laughed Francesco. "Which will you lose, my cousin a wife or a duchy?" Rage struck Gian Maria speechless for a moment.
Gian one only knew why he was distraught, and she was the last he wished to speak to; but more than once he nearly sought her to say, "Partner in my shame, what did you see? what did you hear?" In the afternoon he had a letter from Elspeth telling him how she was enjoying her holiday by the sea, and mentioning that David was at that moment writing to Grizel in Thrums.
"If more plainly still you need it, Gian Maria, I tell you that had I plotted to occupy your tottering throne, I should be on it now, not standing here defending myself against a foolish charge. But can you doubt it? Did you learn no lesson as you rode into Babbiano to-day? Did you not hear them acclaim me and groan at you. And yet," he ended, with a lofty pity, "you tell me that I plotted.
The doctor replied, in the presence of divers persons, that Gian Battista had perished through his own foolishness: if he had not confessed he would never have been condemned; that the Senate had condemned him and not the Duca di Sessa, and that Cardan was now slandering this prince most unjustly.
To my astonishment the stout man was doing just as he was bid, and was pacifying the women students and straightening up their easels and stools. I was interested in watching Gian walking around, helping this one with a stroke of his crayon, saying a word to that, smiling and nodding to another. I just sat there and stared. These students were not regular art-students, I could see that plainly.
But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you had just passed "The greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the Master." Then if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, your gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.
"Madonna Romola, you will be weary of standing: Gian Fantoni will be glad to give you a seat in his house. Here is his door close, at hand. Let me open it for you. What! he loves God and the Frate as we do. His house is yours." Romola was accustomed now to be addressed in this fraternal way by ordinary citizens, whose faces were familiar to her from her having seen them constantly in the Duomo.
Perfectly motionless in that pose, expressing physical anxiety and unrest, she turned her eyes alone towards Nostromo. The Capataz had a red sash wound many times round his waist, and a heavy silver ring on the forefinger of the hand he raised to give a twist to his moustache. "Their revolutions, their revolutions," gasped Senora Teresa. "Look, Gian' Battista, it has killed me at last!"
Then, having returned to Venice, Brugnuoli presented Gian Girolamo's drawings and writings; which done, he was sent to give completion to the fortifications of Legnago, where he had spent many years in executing the designs and models of his uncle.
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