ed you: he was not worth your pains. Borgia I
shall not excuse you. I showed you to him with this only view; I asked
him here, I speak to you now, with this only view. You are adorable in
every part, if you choose to be. Italy has no woman like you, so
winning, so much the sumptuous child: such tall buds shoot only in the
North. To it, then! Charm him as you charmed me. Teach him--_Santo
Dio_!--teach him to die for a smile. At least afford him the smile or
the provocation of it: the rest shall be my affair. Soul of Christ! am I
to miss this astounding opportunity? Never in the world. I bid you by
all you hold sacred to do your duty. Am I plain enough?"

He was. She had grown as grey as a cloth, could say nothing, only motion
with her dry lips. But she bent her head to him, and stretched out her
hands in token of obedience to law.

"Good," said Amilcare; "my wife understands me." And he went out then
and there to his Council. His conviction of her submissiveness (and of
other things about her to modify it) may be gauged by the fact that he
never saw her again (except ceremonially) until a certain moment after
the dinner with Borgia.

Grifone saw her all the more for that. What he saw satisfied him that
she was in terrible trouble. She slunk about, to his view, as if beaten
down by shame. He had seen young girls in that strait very often, when
the first step had been taken, the first flush faded from the venture,
the first after-knowledge come. They always went as though they were
watched. More than that, he discerned that she was nearly broken for
want of a counsellor: he caught her long gaze fixed upon him sometimes.
She seemed to be peering through him, spoke to herself (he thought) as
she sat vacantly upon her throne, or at table among the quick wits, with
all her spying ladies to fence her in. If any one addressed the word to
her she flushed suddenly and began to catch after her breath. He could
see how shortly that breath came, and how it seemed to hurt her. If she
answered at all, it was stupidly and beside the purpose; then she would
look conscious of her dulness, grow uncomfortably red, be at the point
to cry. All this, while it could not but gratify him, made him a little
sorry too.

One night, at a very brilliant assembly given by the notorious Donna
Smeralda Buonaccorso, he saw her standing forlorn on the terrace, like a
lonely rock in the sea--the most beautiful woman in Nona and the most
splendidly attir