observantes eam non peccant : those who disregard it are not committing a sin.”
“I shall know better what to say to that when we have had the Trial by Fire,” said the shopkeeper.
“Which doubtless will clear up everything,” said Tito. “That is all the Latin—all the conclusions that are to be proved true or false by the trial. The rest you can perceive is simply a proclamation of the Signoria in good Tuscan, calling on such as are eager to walk through the fire, to come to the Palazzo and subscribe their names. Can I serve you further? If not—”
Tito, as he turned away, raised his cap and bent slightly, with so easy an air that the movement seemed a natural prompting of deference.
He quickened his pace as he left the Piazza, and after two or three turnings he paused in a quiet street before a door at which he gave a light and peculiar knock. It was opened by a young woman whom he chucked under the chin as he asked her if the Padrone was within, and he then passed, without further ceremony, through another door which stood ajar on his right-hand. It admitted him into a handsome but untidy room, where Dolfo Spini sat playing with a fine staghound which alternately snuffed at a basket of pups and licked his hands with that affectionate disregard of her master’s morals sometimes held to be one of the most agreeable attributes of her sex. He just looked up as Tito entered, but continued his play, simply from that disposition to persistence in some irrelevant action, by which slow-witted sensual people seem to be continually counteracting their own purposes. Tito was patient.
“A handsome bracca that,” he said, quietly, standing with his thumbs in his belt. Presently he added, in that cool liquid tone which seemed mild, but compelled attention, “When you have finished such caresses as