How much, he wondered, might Gian
Maria know of his own share in that mountain meeting, and how would it
fare with him if his cousin was aware that it had been proposed to the
Count of Aquila to supplant him?
He was not long, however, in learning that grounds were wanting for such
fears as he had entertained. Gian Maria received him with even more than
wonted welcome, for he laid much store by Francesco's judgment and was in
sore need of it at present.
Francesco found him at table, which had been laid for him amidst the
treasures of art and learning that enriched the splendid Palace library.
It was a place beloved by Gian Maria for the material comforts that it
offered him, and so he turned it to a score of vulgar purposes of his
own, yet never to that for which it was equipped, being an utter stranger
to letters and ignorant as a ploughboy.
Ensconced in a great chair of crimson leather, at a board overladen with
choice viands and sparkling with crystal flagons and with vessels and
dishes of gold and enamel, Francesco found his cousin, and the air that
had been heavy once with the scholarly smell of parchments and musty
tomes was saturated now with pungent odours of the table.
In stature Gian Maria was short and inclining, young though he was, to
corpulency. His face was round and pale and flabby; his eyes blue and
beady; his mouth sensual and cruel. He was dressed in a suit of lilac
velvet, trimmed with lynx fur, and slashed, Spanish fashion, in the
sleeves, to show the shirt of fine Rheims linen underneath.
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