“It may be,” I answered him, my confusion growing under the steady gaze of Madonna Paola, “it may be that having heard the verses of the Lord Giovanni, I may, unconsciously, have modelled my own lines upon those that made so deep an impression on me.”

He looked at me gravely for a moment.

“That might be an explanation,” he answered deliberately, “but frankly, if I were asked, I should give a very different one.”

“And that would be?” came, sharp and compelling, the voice of Madonna.

He turned to her, shrugged his shoulders and laughed.  “Why, since you ask me,” he said, “I should hazard the opinion that Lazzaro, here, was of considerable assistance to the Lord Giovanni in the penning of those verses with which he delighted us all—­and you, Madonna, I believe, particularly.”

Madonna Paola crimsoned, and her eyes fell.  The others looked at us with inquiring glances—­at her, at Filippo and at me.  With a fresh laugh Filippo turned to me.

“Confess now, am I not right?” he asked good-humouredly.

“Magnificent,” I murmured in tones of protest, “ask yourself the question.  Was it a likely thing that the Lord Giovanni would enlist the services of his jester in such a task?”

“Give me a straightforward answer,” he insisted.  “Am I right or wrong?”

“I am giving you more than a straightforward answer, my lord,” I still evaded him, and more boldly now.  “I am setting you on the high-road to solve the matter for yourself by an appeal to your own good sense and reason.  Was it in the least likely, I repeat, that the Lord Giovanni would seek the services of his Fool to aid him write the verses in honour of the lady of his heart?”

With a burst of mocking laughter, Filippo smote the table a blow of his clenched hand.

“Your prevarications answer me,” he cried.  “You will not say that I am wrong.”

“But I do say that you are wrong!” I exclaimed, suddenly inspired.  “I did not assist the Lord Giovanni with his verses.  I swear it.”

His laughter faded; and his eyes surveyed me with a sudden solemnity.

“Then why did you evade my question?” he demanded shrewdly.  And then his countenance changed as swiftly again.  It was illumined by the light of sudden understanding.  “I have it,” he cried.  “The answer is plain.  You did not assist the Lord Giovanni to write them.  Why?  Because you wrote them yourself, and you gave them to him that he might pass them off as his own.”

It was a merciful thing for me that the whole company fell into a burst of laughter and applauded Filippo’s quick discernment, which they never doubted.  All talked at once, and a hundred proofs were advanced in support of Filippo’s opinion.  The Lord Giovanni’s celebrated dullness of mind, amounting almost to stupidity, was cited, and they reminded one another of the profound astonishment with which they had listened to the compositions that had suddenly burst from him.