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With a swift, comprehensive glance that took in the entire group about the throne and without manifesting the slightest surprise at Lodi's presence Francesco stood still and awaited his cousin's words. He was elegantly dressed, but without lavishness, and if he had the air of a great lord, it was rather derived from the distinction of his face and carriage.
My personal projects and cares had hitherto prevented me from reading Lodi's manuscript; a slight inspection, however, was sufficient to prove that the work was profound and eloquent. My ambition has panted, with equal avidity, after the reputation of literature and opulence. To claim the authorship of this work was too harmless and specious a stratagem not to be readily suggested.
Besides this literary purpose, I likewise used to preserve in it the bank-bills with the keeping or carriage of which I chanced to be entrusted. This image led me back to the leather case containing Lodi's property, which was put into my hands at the same time with the volume. "These images now gave birth to a third conception, which darted on my benighted understanding like an electrical flash.
When the envoy, crimson of face and threatening of eye, had withdrawn under Lodi's escort, Monna Caterina rose, the very incarnation of outraged patience, and poured her bitter invective upon her rash son's head. "Fool!" she stormed at him. "There goes your Duchy in the hollow of that man's hand." Then she laughed in bitterness.
He sank back in his chair, eyeing them with a glance never so wistful, and after a second's silence, Da Lodi's voice implored him, in accents that trembled with pathetic emphasis, to reconsider his resolve. The old man would have proceeded to fresh argument, but Aquila cut him short. "I have already so well considered it, Messer Fabrizio," he answered resolutely, "that nothing now could sway me.
Was it not possible that part of Lodi's property might be enclosed within the leaves of this volume? In hastily turning it over, I recollected to have noticed leaves whose edges by accident or design adhered to each other. Lodi, in speaking of the sale of his father's West-India property, mentioned that the sum obtained for it was forty thousand dollars.
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