If I cannot, I will tell you so, frankly." Giovanni was a little disconcerted by this speech.

Excepting where money was concerned directly, his intelligence was of the sort that easily wastes its energy in futile cunning.

He had not meant to reach the point for a long time, if he had expected to reach it at all at a first attempt.
"I like your straightforwardness," he said evasively.

"But I do not think your conversation idle.

On the contrary, I find it highly instructive." "Indeed ?" Zorzi laughed.