Caro smote the table with his fist.
"When wrote you that, my lord ?" he cried.
"When ?" quoth the Cardinal, frowning at the interruption.

"Why, yestereve." "Ha!" It was something between a bark and a laugh from Messer Caro.

"In that case, my lord, memory usurped the place of invention.

That song was sung at Pavia when I was a student--which is more years ago than I care to think of." The Cardinal smiled upon him, unabashed.

"And what then, pray?
Can we avoid these things?
Why, the very Virgil whom you plagiarize so freely was himself a plagiarist." Now this, as you may well conceive, provoked a discussion about the board, in which all joined, not excepting Fifanti's lady and Donna Leocadia.
I listened in some amazement and deep interest to matters that were entirely strange to me, to the arguing of mysteries which seemed to me--even from what I heard of them--to be strangely attractive.
Anon Fifanti joined in the discussion, and I observed how as soon as he began to speak they all fell silent, all listened to him as to a master, what time he delivered himself of his opinions and criticisms of this Virgil, with a force, a lucidity and an eloquence that revealed his learning even to one so ignorant as myself.
He was listened to with deference by all, if we except perhaps my Lord Gambara, who had no respect for anything and who preferred to whisper to Leocadia under cover of his hand, ogling her what time she simpered.
Once or twice Monna Giuliana flashed him an unfriendly glance, and this I accounted natural, deeming that she resented this lack of attention to the erudite dissertation of her husband.
But as for the others, they were attentive, as I have said, and even Messer Caro, who at the time--as I gathered then--was engaged upon a translation of Virgil into Tuscan, and who, therefore, might be accounted something of an authority, held his peace and listened what time the doctor reasoned and discoursed.
Fifanti's mean, sycophantic air fell away from him as by magic.