tiness of her tone was cutting into me. Was I less
worthy of thanks because I was a Fool? Had I on that account done less
to serve and save her? Or was it that the action which, in a spurred and
armoured knight, had been accounted noble was deemed unworthy of
thanks in a crested, motleyed jester? It seemed, indeed, that some such
reasoning she followed, for after that we spoke no more until we were
approaching Fano.

A many times before had I felt the shame of my ignoble trade, but never
so acutely as at that moment. It had seared my soul when Giovanni Sforza
had told my story to his Court, ere he had driven me from Pesaro with
threats of hanging, and it had burned even deeper when later, Madonna
Lucrezia, upon entrusting me with her letter to her brother, had
upbraided me with the supineness that so long had held me in that vile
bondage. But deepest of all went now the burning iron of that disgrace.
For my companion's silence seemed to argue that had she known my quality
she would have scorned the aid of which she had availed herself to such
good purpose. If any doubt of this had mercifully remained me, her next
words would have served to have resolved it. It was when the lights of
Fano gleamed ahead; we were coming to a cross-roads, and I urged the
turning to the left.

"But Fano is in front," she remonstrated coldly.

"This way we can avoid the town and gain the Pesaro road beyond it,"
answered I, my tone as cool as hers.

"Yet may it not be that at Fano I might find an escort?"

I could have cried out at her cruelty, for in her words I could but read
my dismissal from her service. There had been no more talk of an escort
other than that which I afforded, and with which at first she had been
well content.

I sat my mule in silence for a moment. She had been very justly served
had I been the vassal that she deemed me, and had I borne myself in that
character without consideration of her sex, her station or her years.
She had been very justly served had I wheeled about and left her there
to make her way to Fano, and thence to Pesaro, as best she might. She
was without money, as I knew, and she would have found in Fano such a
reception as would have brought the bitter tears of late repentance to
her pretty eyes.

But I was soft-hearted, and, so, I reasoned with her; yet in a manner
that was to leave her no doubt of the true nature of her situation, and
the need to use me with a little courtesy for the sake of wh