The ex-Dictator put aside the book and rose as the lieutenant was announced, and held out his hand with a show of greeting.
Gaspar Mozara drew a chair up to face his host, and threw himself into it with an oath. Dasso looked his inquiries.
"Expecting me, have you? It was useless my worrying you, señor, until I had news."
Señor Dasso rose and put his hand on the young man's shoulder.
"Now look here, Gaspar, there's no need for you to be surly. There are times ahead in San Pietro, and you should be honoured to think that I have chosen you to work with me. Oh, I know you are thinking of those cards--they are just my safeguard, nothing more, against treachery. A hand such as I am playing does not allow of throwing away a single trick, of missing a single chance. Work with me, Gaspar, and forget that you ever played poker."
A manservant entered and placed refreshment on the table and noiselessly withdrew.
Dasso poured out Madeira into two thin goblets of Venetian glass and handed one to the young man, who stood looking into the fire, seeing in the glowing coals the disdainful face of Galva Baxendale. He stood up with a clanking of spurs on the polished oak floor and took the glass.
"To Dasso," he said, with a reckless laugh; "To King Gabriel the First."
He drained the goblet, then: "You may burn the cards, Dasso, as I have burned my boats. Heart and soul I am with you, and any work in your cause I will do, for it is my cause, too, now. And the more devilish the work the better I shall like it. My fiacre is outside, Dasso; I will come again this evening. My news can hold till then; I am taking Julie to lunch at Amato's."
Shopping was very far from the thoughts of Galva Baxendale as she made her way up the street that ran at right angles to the promenade. Tumultuous thoughts they were, in which the figures of Lieutenant Mozara and the Duc de Choleaux Lasuer played important parts.
She must have walked a considerable distance, for when she glanced at the tiny watch at her wrist she saw that it was eleven o'clock. At the same moment the sonorous chimes of a clock reached her, and glancing up she saw, between the gables of the houses at the end of the street, the white façade of Corbo Cathedral showing brightly in the sunlight.