love.
But think of me always as a friend.'

He did not love her, certainly; nevertheless during the heat and tedium
of the days that followed, certain cadences of that dulcet voice
returned to him like a haunting melody, suggesting visions of a garden,
fresh with splashing fountains, where Bianca wandered in company with
other fair women playing on the viol and singing as in a vignette of the
'Dream of Polyphilo.'

And Bianca passed and was succeeded by others--sometimes two at a time;
but it was finally the little ivory Death's-head which had belonged to
the Cardinal Immenraet, the funereal jewel dedicated to an unknown
Ippolita, that suggested to him the caprice of tempting Donna Ippolita
Albonico.

CHAPTER IX

Donna Ippolita Albonico had a great air of princely nobility in her
whole person, and bore some resemblance to Maria Maddalena of Austria,
wife of Cosimo II. of Medici, whose portrait by Suttermans is at
Florence in the possession of the Corsinis. She affected a sumptuous
style of dress--brocades, velvets, laces--and the high Medici collars
which seemed the most appropriate setting to her superb and imperial
head.

One day at the races, when seated beside her, Andrea was suddenly seized
with the whim to get her to promise to come to the Palazzo Zuccari and
receive the mysterious little clock dedicated to her namesake. Hearing
his audacious words, she frowned, wavering between curiosity and
prudence; but as he, nothing daunted, persevered in the attack, an
irrepressible smile quivered on her lips. Under the shadow of her large
hat with its white plumes, and with her lace-flounced parasol as a
background, she was marvellously handsome.

'_Tibi, Hippolyta!_ Then you will come? I shall be on the look-out for
you all the afternoon, from two o'clock till evening--Is that settled?'

'You must be mad!'

'What have you to fear? I swear that I will not rob Your Majesty of so
much as a glove. You shall remain seated as on a throne, as befits your
regal state, and even in taking a cup of tea, you shall not lay aside
the invisible sceptre you carry for ever in your imperial right hand. On
these conditions is the grace accorded?'

'No.'

But she smiled nevertheless, flattered by this exaltation of the regal
aspect of her beauty, wherein she gloried. And Sperelli continued to
tempt her, always in a tone of banter or entreaty, but adding to the
seduction of his voice a gaze so subtle, so penetrating and d