prompting was really uppermost in the thoughts of everyone at table; and before the stewed fish was removed, and while the favourite sweets were yet to come, his name rose to the surface of the conversation, and, in spite of Rucellai’s previous prohibition, the talk again became political. At first, while the servants remained present, it was mere gossip: what had been done in the Palazzo on the first day’s voting for the Great Council; how hot-tempered and domineering Francesco Valori was, as if he were to have everything his own way by right of his austere virtue, and how it was clear to everybody who heard Soderini’s speeches in favour of the Great Council and also heard the Frate’s sermons, that they were both kneaded in the same trough.
“My opinion is,” said Niccolò Ridolfi, “that the Frate has a longer head for public matters than Soderini or any Piagnone among them: you may depend on it that Soderini is his mouthpiece more than he is Soderini’s.”
“No, Niccolò; there I differ from you,” said Bernardo Ruccellai: “the Frate has an acute mind, and readily sees what will serve his own ends; but it is not likely that Pagolantonio Soderini, who has had long