.

PREUX-CHEVALIER.
In the days that followed I found Messer Fifanti in queerer moods than ever.

Ever impatient, he would be easily moved to anger now, and not a day passed but he stormed at me over the Greek with which, under his guidance, I was wrestling.
And with Giuliana his manner was the oddest thing conceivable; at times he was mocking as an ape, at times his manner had in it a suggestion of the serpent; more rarely he was his usual, vulturine self.

He watched her curiously, ever between anger and derision, to all of which she presented a calm front and a patience almost saintly.

He was as a man with some mighty burden on his mind, undecided whether he shall bear it or cast it off.
Her patience moved me most oddly to pity; and pity for so beautiful a creature is Satan's most subtle snare, especially when you consider what a power her beauty had to move me as I had already discovered to my erstwhile terror.