"Well," said Michel, deeply moved by the marquis's ideas and sentiments, "you have given me for the first time a true conception of nobility. I always attributed it to a few glorious personalities, who must be separated from their race. Now I can imagine lofty and generous thoughts, succeeding one another from generation to generation, connecting the generations with one another, and making as much account of humble virtues as of brilliant deeds. That is judging as God judges, signor marquis, and if I had the honor and the misery to be of noble birth--for it is a grievous burden to him who comprehends it--I should like to see and think as you do." "I thank you," replied the marquis, taking his hand and leading him out on the terrace of his palace. Pier-Angelo and Fra Angelo looked at each other with deep emotion; both had understood the full scope of the marquis's ideas, and they felt strengthened and uplifted by this new aspect which he had given to life, collective and individual alike. As for Master Barbagallo, he had listened with religious respect, but had understood absolutely nothing; and he went away wondering how one could be noble without a palace, without parchments, without a coat of arms, and above all else, without family portraits. He concluded that the nobility could not do without wealth: a marvellous discovery which fatigued him much. At that moment, as the beak of a great pelican of gilded wood, which did duty as hour hand on a monumental clock in the gallery of the Della Serra palace, marked four o'clock in the afternoon, the Piccinino was thinking that his five or six repeating watches must be slow, so impatiently did he await Mila's arrival. He went from the English watch to the Geneva watch, disdaining the Catanian watch which he might have purchased with his money--for the Catanians are watch-makers as well as the Genevans--and from the one surrounded with diamonds to the one adorned with rubies. Being a connoisseur in jewels, he laid claim to none but articles of the most exquisite quality from the booty taken by his men. Thus no one knew the time better than he, who was so keen to make the most of it, and to employ his moments most methodically, in order to lead side by side a life of study and of meditation, a life of adventures, intrigues, and _coups de main_, and a life of pleasure and of lust, which he neither could nor wished to enjoy otherwise than in secret.