forced to answer her. "I trust that all is well with you,
Madonna," I said.

Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of
her strong teeth. "Why, all is very well with me," said she, and her
sidelong glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious
kindliness, seemed to give added explanations.

That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had
wrested from his creature Gambara--here into the shrine of my pure and
saintly Bianca--was something for which I could have killed him then,
for which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark
turpitudes that I had heard associated with his odious name.

And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my
Bianca, speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy
fire what time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily.
He seemed to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance
that he kept us all standing there.

"You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna," I heard him
murmuring. "We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen
in this garden of Pagliano. It is not well that such a jewel should
be hidden in this grey casket. You were made to queen it in a court,
Madonna; and at Piacenza you shall be hailed and honoured as its queen."
And so he rambled on with his rough and trivial flattery, his foully
pimpled face within a foot of hers, and she shrinking before him, very
white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows,
and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the
courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a
sycophantic chorus to the Duke's detestable adulation.

It was Cavalcanti, at last, who came to his daughter's rescue by a
peremptory offer to escort the Duke and his retinue within.

CHAPTER IV. MADONNA BIANCA

Pier Luigi's original intent had been to spend no more than a night at
Pagliano. But when the morrow came, he showed no sign of departing, nor
upon the next day, nor yet upon the next.

A week passed, and still he lingered, seeming to settle more and more in
the stronghold of the Cavalcanti, leaving the business of his Duchy to
his secretary Filarete and to his council, at the head of which, as I
learnt, was my old friend Annibale Caro.

And meanwhile, Cavalcanti, using great discreetness, suffered the Duke's
presence, and gave him and his suite