fe--had inculcated into a soul that in the main was anything but
virtuous. He came a step nearer, and leant lightly against the edge of
her seat, his shapely legs crossed, his graceful body inclining ever so
slightly towards her.

"You are pensive, Madonna," he murmured, in his rich, caressing voice.

"Why then," she reproved him, but in a mild tone, "do you intrude upon
my thoughts?"

"Because they seem sad thoughts, Madonna." he answered, glibly, "and I
were a poor friend did I not seek to rouse you out of them."

"You are that, Gonzaga?" she questioned, without looking at him. "You
are my friend?"

He seemed to quiver and then draw himself upright, whilst across his
face there swept a shade of something that may have been good or bad or
partly both. Then he leant down until his head came very near her own.

"Your friend?" quoth he. "Ah, more than your friend. Count me your very
slave, Madonna."

She looked at him now, and in his countenance she saw a reflection of
the ardour that had spoken in his voice. In his eyes there was a glance
of burning intensity. She drew away from him, and at first he accounted
himself repulsed, but pointing to the space she had left:

"Sit here beside me, Gonzaga," she said quietly, and he, scarce
crediting his own good fortune that so much favour should be showered
upon him, obeyed her in a half-timid fashion that was at odd variance
with his late bold words.

He laughed lightly, perhaps to cover the embarrassment that beset him,
and dropping his jewelled cap, he flung one white-cased leg over the
other and took his lute in his lap, his fingers again wandering to the
strings.

"I have a new song, Madonna," he announced, with a gaiety that was
obviously forced. "It is in ottava rima, a faint echo of the immortal
Niccolo Correggio, composed in honour of one whose description is beyond
the flight of human song."

"Yet you sing of her?"

"It is no better than an acknowledgment of the impossibility to sing of
her. Thus----" And striking a chord or two, he began, a mezza voce:

"Quando sorrideran' in ciel
Gli occhi tuoi ai santi--"

She laid a hand upon his arm to stay him.

"Not now, Gonzaga," she begged, "I am in no humour for your song, sweet
though I doubt not that it be."

A shade of disappointment and ruffled vanity crossed his face. Women
had been wont to listen greedily to his strambotti, enthralled by the
cunning of the words and the seductive sweetness