eminds me of Messer San Giovanni Vangelista," Ugolino continued,
"who was made to sing rarely by the touching of a hot cinder."

Selvaggia snatched the scrolls out of her brother's hand. "Nay, nay, but
wait," she cried, with a gulp of laughter; "I have done that to Messer
Cino, or can if I choose." She turned over the delicate pen-work in a
hurry. "Here," she said eagerly, "read this!"

Ugolino scampered through a couple of quatrains. "There's nothing out of
common here," said he.

"Go on, go on," said the girl, and nudged him to attend.

Ugolino read the sestett:--

"'His book is but the vesture of her spirit;
So too thy poet, that feels the living coal
Flame on his lips and leap to song, shall know,
To whom the glory, whose the unending merit;
Nor faltering shall his utterance be, nor slow
The mute confession of his inmost soul.'"

Reading, he became absorbed in this fantastic, but not unhandsome piece;
even Selvaggia pondered it with wide eyes and lips half parted. It was
certainly very wonderful that a man could say such things, she thought.
Were they true? Could they be true of any one in the world--even of
Beatrice Portinari, that wonderful dead lady? She had never, she
remembered, shown this particular sonnet to Nicoletta. What would
Nicoletta have said? Pooh, what nonsense it was, what arrant nonsense in
a man who could carry a sword, if he chose, and kill his enemies, or,
better still, with his head outwit them--that he should turn to pens and
ink and to fogging a poor girl! So Selvaggia, not so Ugolino. He got up
and whispered to the scowling Ridolfo; Ridolfo nodded, and the pair of
them went off presently together.

Oblique looks on Cino were the immediate outcome. He knew the young men
disliked him, but cared little for that so long as they left him free
to his devotions. A brisk little passage, a rally of words, with a bite
in some of them, should have warned him; but no, the stage he had
reached was out of range of the longest shots.

Said Ugolino at supper: "Messer Giurisconsulto, will you have a red
pepper?"

"Thank you, Messere," replied Cino, "it is over hot for my tongue."

The huge Ridolfo threw his head back to laugh. "Does a burnt man dread
the fire, or is he only to be fired one way? Why, man alive, my sister
has set a flaming coal to your lips, and I am told you burst out singing
instead of singeing."

Cino coloured at this lunge; yet his respect fo