its spending of breath, for at that very moment Messer Dante
entered the hall, and was making his way toward Messer Folco with the
bearing of one that courteously salutes his host.

I looked about me sharply to right and to left, in the hope that I might
by chance catch sight of the guest that thus called upon my friend, but
I could see no one to whom I could with any surety credit the utterance.
I observed, indeed, a certain youth that was cloaked as to his body and
masked as to his face slipping out of the crowd about me who might have
been the speaker, but whom I could in nowise identify. It was so much
the mode with many of us that were young in Florence to come--and
sometimes to come unbidden--to such galas as this of Messer Folco's in
antic habits and to hide our features with vizards, that there was
nothing in this costume to single out the youth whom I believed to be
the utterer of that call for Dante. There were many other masked and
muffled figures within the walls of Messer Folco's house that night as
hard to tell apart as one cherry from another. But whoever the speaker
may have been, the speech had the desired effect. Coupled as it so
timely was with the appearance of Dante under Messer Folco's roof, it
caught the fancy of all that heard it, and each hearer echoed readily
enough the suggestion: "Let Messer Dante read the rhymes!" Thus it came
about that Messer Dante had scarcely gone many paces down the hall
toward his host when he became aware that he was the target of all eyes.

Though he was surprised at this unexpected attention on the part of so
large a concourse of persons, he was in no sense taken aback or
embarrassed, but came quietly to a halt and looked with a curious and
composed scrutiny at the crowd of men and women that were all regarding
him so intently. As he did so, some one cried again, "Let Messer Dante
read the rhymes!" And this time Dante heard the words, and he saw also
how Messer Guido stood in the throng hard by to Folco and held in his
hands a roll of parchment. For a moment Dante showed some signs of
discomposure. He changed his fresh color a little to an unfamiliar
paleness, and his eyes meeting mine, they flashed a question at me which
I could but answer by a determined shake of the head. For I saw that
Dante's had a misgiving that I had revealed his secret, which indeed I
had not. Then Dante looked at Guido as if to question him, but before he
could speak Messer Folco had paid