ave entire belief to all he said and told him, in turn, what she knew
of his servant and how he might lightly find him again on the morrow.
Then, the table being laid, Rinaldo, at the lady's instance, washed
his hands and sat down with her to supper. Now he was tall of his
person and comely and pleasant of favour and very engaging and
agreeable of manners and a man in the prime of life; wherefore the
lady had several times cast her eyes on him and found him much to her
liking, and her desires being already aroused for the Marquis, who was
to have come to lie with her, she had taken a mind to him.
Accordingly, after supper, whenas they were risen from table, she took
counsel with her maid whether herseemed she would do well, the Marquis
having left her in the lurch, to use the good which fortune had sent
her. The maid, seeing her mistress's drift, encouraged her as best she
might to ensue it; whereupon the lady, returning to the fireside,
where she had left Rinaldo alone, fell to gazing amorously upon him
and said to him, 'How now, Rinaldo, why bide you thus melancholy?
Think you you cannot be requited the loss of a horse and of some small
matter of clothes? Take comfort and be of good cheer; you are in your
own house. Nay, I will e'en tell you more, that, seeing you with those
clothes on your back, which were my late husband's, and meseeming you
were himself, there hath taken me belike an hundred times to-night a
longing to embrace you and kiss you: and but that I feared to
displease you, I had certainly done it.'

[Footnote 86: _i.e._ after her bath.]

Rinaldo, who was no simpleton, hearing these words and seeing the
lady's eyes sparkle, advanced towards her with open arms, saying,
'Madam, considering that I owe it to you to say that I am now alive
and having regard to that from which you delivered me, it were great
unmannerliness in me, did I not study to do everything that may be
agreeable to you; wherefore do you embrace me and kiss me to your
heart's content, and I will kiss and clip you more than willingly.'
There needed no more words. The lady, who was all afire with amorous
longing, straightway threw herself into his arms and after she had
strained him desirefully to her bosom and bussed him a thousand times
and had of him been kissed as often, they went off to her chamber, and
there without delay betaking themselves to bed, they fully and many a
time, before the day should come, satisfied their desires one of