re, that thou hast offspring by her.

_Filippo._ Alas! 'tis undeniable.

_Eugenius._ I will not only legitimatize the said offspring by _motu
proprio_ and rescript to consistory and chancery....

_Filippo._ Holy Father! Holy Father! For the love of the Virgin, not a
word to consistory or chancery of the two hundred zecchins. As I hope
for salvation, I have but forty left, and thirty-nine would not serve
them.

_Eugenius._ Fear nothing. Not only will I perform what I have
promised, not only will I give the strictest order that no money be
demanded by any officer of my courts, but, under the seal of Saint
Peter, I will declare thee and Lucrezia Buti man and wife.

_Filippo._ Man and wife!

_Eugenius._ Moderate thy transport.

_Filippo._ O Holy Father! may I speak?

_Eugenius._ Surely she is not the wife of another?

_Filippo._ No, indeed.

_Eugenius._ Nor within the degrees of consanguinity and affinity?

_Filippo._ No, no, no. But ... man and wife! Consistory and chancery
are nothing to this fulmination.

_Eugenius._ How so?

_Filippo._ It is man and wife the first fortnight, but wife and man
ever after. The two figures change places: the unit is the decimal and
the decimal is the unit.

_Eugenius._ What, then, can I do for thee?

_Filippo._ I love Lucrezia; let me love her; let her love me. I can
make her at any time what she is not; I could never make her again
what she is.

_Eugenius._ The only thing I can do then is to promise I will forget
that I have heard anything about the matter. But, to forget it, I must
hear it first.

_Filippo._ In the beautiful little town of Prato, reposing in its
idleness against the hill that protects it from the north, and looking
over fertile meadows, southward to Poggio Cajano, westward to Pistoja,
there is the convent of Santa Margarita. I was invited by the sisters
to paint an altar-piece for the chapel. A novice of fifteen, my own
sweet Lucrezia, came one day alone to see me work at my Madonna. Her
blessed countenance had already looked down on every beholder lower by
the knees. I myself who made her could almost have worshipped her.

_Eugenius._ Not while incomplete; no half-virgin will do.

_Filippo._ But there knelt Lucrezia! there she knelt! first looking
with devotion at the Madonna, then with admiring wonder and grateful
delight at the artist. Could so little a heart be divided? 'Twere a
pity! There was enough for me; there is never enough for the Mado