wench with
cheeks like apples. It is not desirable that women should be so large.
All women should be little creatures that fear you. They should have
thin, plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as slight to the
touch as a cobweb. It is not possible to love a woman ardently unless
you comprehend how easy it would be to murder her."

"God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for he was familiar with
the look which had now come into Duke Alessandro's face. Indeed, all
persons about court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like
that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at court became
obsequious within the instant in dealing with the fortunate woman who
had aroused this look, Count Eglamore remembered.

And the girl did not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in
bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color had ebbed from
her countenance.

Alessandro was frankly pleased. "You fear me, do you not, Graciosa?
See, now, when I touch your hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's
skin, and you shudder. I am very tired of women who love me, of all
women with bold, hungry eyes. To you my touch will always be a
martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and therefore I shall not weary
of you for a long while. Come, Graciosa. Your father shall have all
the wealth and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise, so
long as you can contrive to loathe me. We will find you a suitable
husband. You shall have flattery and titles, gold and fine glass, soft
stuffs and superb palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward."

He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged. "So Eglamore has been
wooing you with jewels! You must see mine, dear Graciosa. It is not
merely an affair of possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds
of sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three kinds of rubies,
and many extraordinary pearls, diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green
peridots, tyanos, sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"--he enumerated
them with the tender voice of their lover--"for the value of these may
at least be estimated. Oh, no, I have in my possession gems which have
not their fellows in any other collection, gems which have not even a
name and the value of which is incalculable--strange jewels that were
shot from inaccessible mountain peaks by means of slings, jewels
engendered by the thunder, jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian
deer, jewels cut from the b