'How can such an idea have entered your head? Do you not see that all men lie humble at your feet, attentive to every word and gesture?'
'Yes,' she answered, 'but not you!'
Of course I protested.
'Oh,' she said, 'I saw very well that you avoided me. When you came in hereyou hardly came near me.'
'I did not think you would notice my inattention.'
'Certainly I noticed it; I was afraid I had offended you. I could not think how.'
'My dear lady, you have certainly done nothing to offend me.'
'Then, why do you avoid me?' she asked petulantly.
'Really,' I said, 'I don't. Perhaps in my modesty I thought it would be a matter of indifference to you whether I was at your side or not. I am sorry I have annoyed you.'
'I don't like people not to like me,' she said in a plaintive way.
'But why should you think I do not like you? Indeed, without flattery, I can assure you that I think you one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.'
A faint blush came over her cheeks, and a smile broke out on her lips; she looked up at me with a pretty reproachful air.
'Then, why don't you let me see it more plainly?'
I smiled, and, looking into her eyes, was struck by their velvet softness. I almost thought she was as charming as she was beautiful.
'Do you really wish to know?' I said, in reply to her question.
'Do tell me!' she said, faintly pressing my arm.
'I thought you had so many admirers that you could well do without me.'
'But, you see,' she answered charmingly, 'I cannot!'
'And then I have a certain dislike to losing myself in a crowd. I did not wish to share your smiles with twenty others.'
'And would you for that refuse them altogether?'
'I have always avoided the woman who is the object of general admiration. I think I am too proud to struggle for favours; I would rather dispense with them.'
'But, then, supposing the lady wishes to favour you especially, you do not give her the opportunity.'
'That is so rare,' I replied, 'that it is not worth while breaking the rule.'
'But it may happen.'
I shrugged my shoulders. She paused a moment, and then said,
'You do like me, then, after all?'
I saw a slight trembling of the lip, perhaps the eyes were a little moist. I felt sorry for what I had done.
'I fear I have given you pain,' I said.
'You have a little,' she replied.
'I am sorry. I thought you did not care.'
'I like people to love me and be pleased with me.'
'I do both!'
'Then you must show it,' she replied, a smile breaking through the beginning of tears.
I really had been brutal, and I was very sorry that I had caused a cloud to gather over her sunshiny nature. She was indeed very sweet and charming.
'Well, we are good friends now, aren't we?' she said.
'Of course.'
'And you'll come and see me often?'
'As often as you will allow me to,' I answered. She gave me her hand to kiss, and a bright, happy smile lit up her face.
'A rivederci!' she said.
We went home, and Matteo found waiting for him a message from Checco, bidding him leave the inn and take up his quarters with me at the Palazzo Orsi. On arriving, we found Checco excitedly walking up and down a long corridor lined with statues and pictures.
'I am glad you have come,' he said to Matteo, taking his hand and nodding. 'You must stay here; we must all keep together now, for anything may happen.'
'What do you mean?' asked Matteo.
'The catastrophe nearly came today.'
We both looked at him with astonishment, not comprehending. Checco stood still abruptly.
'He tried to arrest me todayGirolamo!' Then, speaking very quickly, as if labouring under great excitement, 'I had to go to the Palace on business. I found him in the audience chamber, and we began to talk certain matters over, and I grew rather heated. Suddenly I noticed that the place had emptied itself. I stopped in the midst of my sentence and looked up at Girolamo. I saw he was not attending to me; his eyes were fixed on the door.'
Checco was silent, and drops of perspiration were standing on his forehead.
'Yes! Yes!' we both said eagerly.
'The door opened, and the Master of the Guard walked in. "By God!" I thought, "I'm trapped!" "I have been waiting for you, Andrea," said Girolamo. Then he turned to me, and said, "Come into the Room of the Nymphs, Checco. I have some papers there to show you." He took hold of my arm. I loosed myself. "I pray you, excuse me," I said, "I have some very urgent business." I walked to the door. Andrea glanced at his master, and I thought he was going to bar my way; I think he was waiting for some sign, but before it came I had seen through the open door Paolo Bruni, and I called out, "Paolo, Paolo, wait for me. I want to talk to you urgently." Then I knew I was safe; he dared not touch me; and I turned round and said again, "I pray you, excuse me; my business with Paolo is a matter of life or death." I brushed past Andrea and got out. By Heaven! how I breathed when I found myself in the piazza!'
'But are you sure he meant to arrest you?' said Matteo.
'Certain; what else?'
'Andrea might have come in by accident. There may have been nothing in it at all.'
'I was not deceived,' answered Checco, earnestly. 'Their looks betrayed themAndrea's questioning glance. I know he wants to kill me.'
'But would he dare seize you in cold blood?'
'He cares for nothing when he has an object in view. Besides, when he had me in his power, what could have been done? I know Girolamo too well. There would have been a mock trial, and I should have been condemned. Or else he would have me strangled in my cell, and when I had gone you would have been helplessmy father is too old, and there would have been no leader to the party but youand what could you do alone?'
We all remained silent for a while, then Checco broke out.
'I know he wants to rid himself of me. He has threatened before, but has never gone so far as this.'
'I agree with you,' said Matteo; 'things are becoming grave.'
'It is not so much for myself I care; but what would happen to my children? My father is safehe is so old and helpless that they would never think of touching himbut my boys? Caterina would throw them into prison without a scruple.'
'Well,' said Matteo, 'what will you do?'
'What can I do?' he answered. 'I have been racking my brains, and I see no way of safety. I can wear a coat of mail to preserve me from the stray knife of an assassin, but that will not help me against a troop of soldiers. I can leave Forli, but that is to abandon everything.'
'No, you must not leave Forlianything but that!'
'What can I do? What can I do?' he stamped his foot on the ground as if almost in desperation.
'One thing,' said Matteo, 'you must not go about alonealways with at least two friends.'
'Yes, I have thought of that. But how will it all turn out; it cannot last. What can I do?'
He turned to me.
'What do you think?' he said. 'He means to kill me.'
'Why not anticipate him?' I answered quietly.
They both started up with a cry.
'Kill him!'
'Assassination! I dare not, I dare not,' said Checco, very excitedly. 'I will do all I can by fair means, but assassination'
I shrugged my shoulders.
'It seems a matter of selfpreservation,' I said.
'No, no; I won't speak of it! I won't think of it.' He began again to walk excitedly up and down the room. 'I won't think of it, I tell you. I could not.'
Neither Matteo nor I spoke.
'Why don't you speak?' he said to Matteo, impatiently.
'I am thinking,' he answered.
'Not of that; I forbid you to think of that. I will not have it.' Then, after a pause, abruptly, as if he were angry with us and with himself, 'Leave me!'
V
A few days later, Matteo came to me as I was dressing, having rescued my clothes from him.
'I wonder you're not ashamed to go out in those garments,' he remarked, 'people will say that you wear my old things.'
I took no notice of the insult.
'Where are you going?' he asked.
'To Madonna Giulia.'
'But you went there yesterday!'
'That is no reason why I should not go today. She asked me to come.'
'That's very obliging of her, I'm sure.' Then, after a pause, during which I continued my toilet, 'I have been gathering the news of Forli.'
'Oh!'
'Madonna Giulia has been affording a great deal of interest.'
'You have been talking to the lady whom you call the beautiful Claudia,' I said.
'By the way, why have you not been to her?'
'I really don't know,' I said. 'Why should I?'
'You told me you had progressed a long way in her favours during the halfhour's talk you had with her the other night; have you not followed up the advantage?'
I shrugged my shoulders.
'I don't think I like a woman to make all the advances.'
'Don't you?' said Matteo. 'I do!'
'Besides, I don't care for the type; she is too massive.'
'She feels very much hurt at your neglect. She says you have fallen in love with Giulia.'
'That is absurd,' I replied; 'and as to her being hurt at my neglect, I am very sorry, but I don't feel any obligation to throw myself into the arms of every woman who chooses to open them.'
'I quite agree with you; neither she nor Giulia are a bit better than they should be. I'm told Giulia's latest lover is Amtrogio della Treccia. It seems one day he was almost caught by old Bartolomeo, and had to slip out of the window and perform feats worthy of a professional acrobat to get out of the way.'
'I don't think I attach belief to all the scandal circulating on the subject of that lady.'
'You're not in love with her?' asked Matteo, quickly.
I laughed.
'Certainly not. But still'
'That's all right; because, of course, you know it's notorious that she has had the most disgraceful amours. And she hasn't even kept them to her own class; all sorts of people have enjoyed her favours.'
'She does not look very much like a Messalina,' I said, sneering a little.
'Honestly, Filippo, I do think she is really very little better than a harlot.'
'You are extremely charitable,' I said. 'But don't you think you are somewhat prejudiced by the fact that you yourself did not find her one. Besides, her character makes no particular difference to me; I really care nothing if she's good or bad; she is agreeable, and that is all I care about. She is not going to be my wife.'
'She may make you very unhappy; you won't be the first.'
'What a fool you are!' I said, a little angrily. 'You seem to think that because I go and see a woman I must be dying of love for her. You are absurd.'
I left him, and soon found myself at the Palazzo Aste, where Donna Giulia was waiting for me. I had been to see her nearly every day since my arrival in Forli, for I really liked her. Naturally, I was not in love with her as Matteo suggested, and I had no intention of entering into that miserable state. I had found her charmingly simple, very different from the monster of dissipation she was supposed to be. She must have been three or fourandtwenty, but in all her ways she was quite girlish, merry and thoughtless, full of laughter at one moment, and then some trifling thing would happen to discompose her and she would be brought to the verge of tears; but a word or caress, even a compliment, would make her forget the unhappiness which had appeared so terrible, and in an instant she would be wreathed in smiles. She seemed so delightfully fragile, so delicate, so weak, that one felt it necessary to be very gentle with her. I could not imagine how anyone could use a hard word to her face.
Her eyes lit up as she saw me.
'How long you've been,' she said. 'I thought you were never coming.'
She always seemed so glad so see you that you thought she must have been anxiously awaiting you, and that you were the very person of all others that she wished to have with her. Of course, I knew it was an affectation, but it was a very charming one.
'Come and sit by me here,' she said, making room for me on a couch; then when I had sat down, she nestled close up to me in her pretty childish way, as if seeking protection. 'Now, tell me all you've been doing.'
'I've been talking to Matteo,' I said.
'What about?'
'You.'
'Tell me what he said.'
'Nothing to your credit, my dear,' I said, laughing.
'Poor Matteo,' she answered. 'He's such a clumsy, lumbering creature, one can see he's spent half his life in camps.'
'And I? I have spent the same life as Matteo. Am I a clumsy, lumbering creature?'
'Oh, no,' she answered, 'you are quite different.' She put the pleasantest compliments in the look of her eyes.
'Matteo told me all sorts of scandal about you.' She blushed a little.
'Did you believe it?'
'I said I did not much care if it were true or not.'
'But do you believe it?' she asked, insisting.
'If you'll tell me it is not true, I will believe absolutely what you say.'
The little anxious look on her face gave way to a bright smile.
'Of course, it is not true.'
'How beautiful you are when you smile,' I remarked irrelevantly. 'You should always smile.'
'I always do on you,' she answered. She opened her mouth, as if about to speak, held back, as if unable to make up her mind, then said, 'Did Matteo tell you he made love to me once, and was very angry because I would not pick up the handkerchief which he had condescended to throw.'
'He mentioned it.'
'Since then, I am afraid he has not had very much good to say of me.'
I had thought at the time that Matteo was a little bitter in his account of Donna Giulia, and I felt more inclined to believe her version of the story than his.
'He has been beseeching me not to fall in love with you,' I said.
She laughed.
'Claudia Piacentini has been telling everyone that it is too late, and she is horribly jealous.'
'Has she? Matteo also seemed certain I was in love with you.'
'And are you?' she asked suddenly.
'No!' I replied with great promptness.
'Brutta bestia!' she said, throwing herself to the end of the couch, and beginning to pout.
'I am very sorry,' I said, laughing, 'but I cannot help it.'
'I think it is horrid of you,' she remarked.
'You have so many adorers,' I said in expostulation.
'Yes, but I want more,' she smiled.
'But what good can it do you to have all these people in love with you?'
'I don't know,' she said, 'it is a pleasant sensation.'
'What a child you are!' I answered, laughing.
She bent forward seriously.
'But are you not at all in love with me?'
I shook my head. She came close up to me, so that her hair brushed lightly against my cheek; it sent a shiver through me. I looked at her tiny ear; it was beautifully shaped, transparent as a pink shell. Unconsciously, quite without intention, I kissed it. She pretended to take no notice, and I was full of confusion. I felt myself blushing furiously.