t and
patient, and all will be well. Put your faith in Galeotto, and endure
insults which you may depend upon him to avenge when the hour strikes."

Upon that he left me, and he left me with a certain comfort. And in the
days that followed, I acted upon his injunction, though, truth to tell,
there was little provocation to do otherwise. The Duke ignored me, and
all the gentlemen of his following did the like, including Cosimo. And
meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality
to which they had not been bidden.

Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach
Bianca after what had passed between us at our single interview. Nor
for that matter was I afforded the opportunity. The Duke and Cosimo
were ever at her side, and yet it almost seemed as if the Duke had given
place to his captain, for Cosimo's was the greater assiduity now.

The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon
hawking-parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was
sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there
was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we
danced, though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having
neither the will nor the art.

One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them
footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice
behind me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and
had come to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided
her, neither addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me
since the first brazen speech on her arrival.

"That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have
caught the Duke in her net of innocence," said she.

I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling
face she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon
her face that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with
Fifanti.

"You are greatly daring," said I.

"To take in vain the name of her white innocence?" she answered, smiling
superciliously. And then she grew more serious. "Look, Agostino, we were
friends once. I would be your friend now."

"It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression."

"Ha! We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the
ways of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised
our eyes to the