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Yet, depend upon it, the cringer has balanced to a nicety the sweets and sours of boot-blacking against the buona mano; the rest is pure commerce. So now, the deliberate insolence of the flushed Borgia towards his host was a thing to be dumb at; yet Passavente redoubled his volubility.
Lying on the poop of the Santa Fina, his dark eyes questing over her face, her hands among his curls, he seemed to Molly the wonder of the world. So of her world he was; but he meant to be that of his own a very different world. He was a lithe, various creature, this Amilcare Passavente, his own paradox.
Cesare was his deadly enemy, the one man he honestly feared; the one man, consequently, he wanted to meet. He was still brooding over it when the broad-backed butcher they call Il Drudo slammed him on the back. "Fortune is with you, Passavente the slut! She gives you time to breathe. The Borgia had a sinking of the stomach; he hankered after a filling of Lombard sausage a little while since.
Molly dropped a curtsy, covering herself closer with a hand at the hood's tie. Cesare showed his teeth, held out both his hands. Passavente, with a displaying air full of alacrity and deference, unveiled his wife, and she went forward to greet his Grace.
Then he clapped him on the shoulder. "My Passavente," he cried, "you have gone far on your pearl-fishing and dived deeper than most of us, but by our hope of salvation you have found a jewel of price! And ah, Madonna," he said, with his burning eyes on the girl, "you have brought the sun into Italy.
My father's perhaps; my mother's more certainly, since my father ran away. My mother would have run too, but she had no time. Eh, take me up, Signore! I cannot swim." Amilcare swung him up by the hand, so saved his life. Next day Grifone saved his. They burnt a monastery in the plain and ransacked a chestful of correspondence. "Death of Christ!" swore Passavente, "I can't read this Latin.
Of Passavente he had not the slightest concern. That hero was prostrate, bowing and chattering, and explaining with his hands. Molly stayed twittering by the door, wonderful because she saw her King of Men cringing like a footboy before a shorter than himself. True, it was case of a duke; but she had not known such dealings in Wapping.
Indeed, my Faustus, had you but once tasted of lips so fragrant and so soft, not for a time only, but to your end of days, you would choose to be a pilgrim in this England." By no means the only stranger to be charmed by our welcoming girls was Erasmus. Amilcare Passavente, of a darker blood, found such kisses sweet: those of one at least he vowed to call his own.
"Lift me into the saddle, Signore," said the boy, with a propitiating grin; "I am getting my feet wet." The little dog had a humorous twist to his eyebrow, and it was true enough that the kennels were running red. "Whose blood is that on your legs, my lad?" Passavente stayed his charger. Grifone shrugged. "Misericordia! Who knows?
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