I will deck myself like a beast for sacrifice, and I will show him--" Not a word of this harangue had escaped the ears of the architect who had been at first indignant and then moved to laughter, and withal it had touched his heart.

A sluggish and torpid character was repugnant to his vigorous nature, and the deliberate and indifferent demeanor of the stout steward, on an occasion which had prompted him and all concerned to act as quickly and energetically as possible, had brought words to his lips which he now wished that he had never spoken.

It is true that the steward's false pride had roused his indignation, and who can listen calmly to any comment on a stain on his birth?
But the appeal of this miserable father's daughter had gone to his heart.

He pitied the fatuous simpleton whom, with a turn of his hand, he could reduce to beggary, and who had evidently been far more deeply hurt by his words than Pontius had been by what he had overheard, and so he followed the kindly impulse of a noble nature to spare the unfortunate.
He rapped loudly with his knuckles on the inside of the door-post of the ante-room, coughed loudly, and then said, bowing deeply to the steward on the threshold of the sitting-room: "Noble Keraunus--I have come, as beseems me, to pay you my respects.
Excuse the lateness of the hour, but you can scarcely imagine how busy I have been since we parted." Keraunus had at first started at the late visitor, then he stared at him in consternation.

He now went towards him, stretched out both hands as if suddenly relieved of a nightmare, and a bright expression of such warm and sincere satisfaction overspread his countenance that Pontius wondered how he could have failed to observe what a well-cut face this fat original had.
"Take a seat at our humble table," said Keraunus.