nd hate and grave adventures. So when a new and nameless
poet filled the air of Florence with his sweetness it did not take me
long to spell the letters of his name."

I felt, as I listened, very sure that it ought not to have taken me long
either, and the thought made me penitent, and I was about to attempt
apologies for my folly when Madonna Vittoria cut me short with new
words.

"It mattered little," she went on, "for me to guess the secret of the
new poet's mystery, but it mattered much that Simone should guess it.
Yet he did guess it. For my Simone, that should be and shall be mine,
though he knows nothing and cares nothing for poetry, guessed with the
crude instinct of brutish jealousy the authorship that has puzzled
Florence."

I felt and looked disturbed at these tidings, and I besought Monna
Vittoria to give me the aid of her counsel in this business, as to what
were best to do and what not to do. And Madonna Vittoria very earnestly
warned me not to make light of Messer Simone's anger, nor to doubt that
my Dante was in danger.

"It were very well," she said, after a few moments of silent
thoughtfulness, "if Messer Dante could be persuaded to pay some kind of
public addresses to some other lady, so as to divert the suspicions of
Messer Simone. Let him show me some attention; let him haunt my house
awhile. Messer Simone will not be jealous of me, now that he is in this
marry mood of his."

I have sometimes wondered since if Madonna Vittoria, in her willingness
to help Dante, was not also more than a little willing to please herself
with the society of one that could write such incomparable love-verses.
Whatever the reason for it might be, I found her idea ingenious and
commended it heartily, but Madonna Vittoria, that seemed indifferent to
my approval, interrupted the full flood of my eloquence with a lifted
hand and lifted eyebrows.

"I know your Dante too well," she said, "though I know him but little,
to think that he will be persuaded to any course in order to avoid the
anger of Messer Simone."

I knew that this was true as soon as Madonna Vittoria had said it, and I
admired the insight of women by which they are so skilled to distinguish
one man from another, even when they have seen very little of the man
that happens to interest them. I may honestly confess that if the case
had been my case, I would cheerfully have availed myself of Monna
Vittoria's suggestion and seemed to woo her--though, indeed