"Your loyalty to the House of Farnese, and the hospitality which I, its deputy, have received..." "Hospitality!" barked Fifanti, and looked very oddly at Giuliana; so oddly that a faint colour began to creep into her cheeks.

"You would pay for that ?" he questioned, half mockingly.

"Oh, but for that a stipend of three hundred ducats is too little." And all the time his eyes were upon his wife, and I saw her stiffen as if she had been struck.
But the Cardinal laughed outright.

"Come now, you use me with an amiable frankness," he said.

"The stipend shall be doubled when you join the council." "Doubled ?" he said.