During all this time the two women had remained passive and apparently apathetic listeners. Now, suddenly, the girl rose from her place by the chimney and came heavily forward, her eyes glaring, her hands clenched in woe, like some incarnated, fallen pythoness. ’Tell _me_,’ she said hoarsely. ’I haven’t _his_ patience for my wrongs, nor caution neither. What’s gained by caution when one stands on an earthquake? Let me make sure of _him_, my fine lover, and the world may fall in, for all I care.’ The pale mother hurried to her husband’s side. He put out helpless, irresolute hands, with a groan. Montano stooping, elbow on knee, and rubbing his bristly chin, conned the speaker with sinister approval. ’Spoken like a Roman,’ said he. ’Thou art the better vessel. If all were as you! Tyranny is hatched of the gross corpse of manliness—a beastly fly. Wilt tell thee my Brutus’s name, girl, if thou wilt answer for these.’ He pointed peremptorily at her parents. ’Ay, will I,’ she answered scornfully; ’though I have to wrench out their tongues first.’ He applauded shrilly, with a triumphant, contemptuous glance at the cowering couple. ’That is the right way with cowards. I commit my Brutus to thee. ’Tis a threefold dog, as I have said—a fanged Cerberus. Noble, too—as Roman as thou; and, in one part at least, like wounded. He, this third part, this Carlo Visconti, had a sister. Well, she was a flower which Galeazzo plucked; and, not content therewith threw into the common road. Another head is Lampugnani, beggared by the Sforzas; and Girolamo Olgiati is my third, a dear beardless boy, and instigated only by the noblest love of liberty.’ The girl nodded. ’And are these all?’ ’All, save a fellow called Narcisso—a mere instrument to use and break—no principles but hate and gain. Was servant to that bully Lanti and dismissed—hum! for excess of loyalty. Fear him not.’ ’Alas!’ broke in the armourer: ’why should we fear him or anybody? There is no harm in this letting my shop to be thy school’s succedaneum.’ Lucia laughed like a fury. ’No harm at all,’ sniggered Montano, ’save in these heresies I spoke of. And what are they?—to reorganise society on a basis of political and social freedom. No harm in these young Catalines discussing their drastic remedies, perhaps in the vanity of a hope that some Sallust may be found to record them.’ ’Nay, have done with all this,’ cried the girl witheringly. ’I know nothing of your Catalines and Sallusts. Ye meet to kill—own it, or ye meet elsewhere.’ Her mother cried out: ’O Lucia! per pieta.’ She made no answer, only fixing Montano with her glittering eyes. He rose from his stool stiffly, with a snarl for his aching wounds. But his face brightened towards her like a spark of wintry sun. ’We meet to kill, Madonna,’ he said, ’ruined, crippled, debauched—the victims of a monster and his system. And thou shalt have thy share, never fear, when the feast comes to follow the sacrifice.’