'How!' she cried angrily, 'when thou told'st me——'
'With humility, Madonna,' he submitted, 'I told thee naught but that he and this Montano were agreed on the State's disease.'
'Well?'
'But I never said on its cure.'
She frowned, leaning forward and again biting a strand of her hair—a sullen trick with her in anger.
'A doctor of rhetoric, and so feeble in persuasion!' she muttered scornfully.
'A' starts at a shadow, this saint,' pleaded Narcisso. 'A' must be coaxed, little by little, like a shy foal. We will have him in the halter anon. Yet a' be only one out of five, when all's said.'
'Dolt!' she hissed. 'What are the other four, or their purpose, to me, save as a lever to my revenge? I foresee it all. Why telled'st me not before I sent thee? Now this gross lord, instead of himself tangling in the meshes, will persuade the other back to court and reason and forgiveness, and I shall be worse than damned. Dolt, I could kill thee!'
She rose to her height, furious, and he shrunk cowering before her.
'Listen, Madonna,' he said, trembling: 'Canst net them all yet at one swoop. Go tell Messer Ludovico, and certes a' will jump to destroy the nest and all in it, before a' inquires their degrees of guilt.'