'Yourself,' he answered serenely.
'Ah!' she cried, 'you would threaten, if I refuse, to destroy me with it?'
He made a deprecating motion with his hands.
'Beware,' she said fiercely; 'I can retort. Where is Tassino?'
He looked at her kindly.
'Madonna, do you not know? Nay, do I not know that you know? He lies hidden in the burrow of this same Narcisso.'
'At whose instigation? Not yours, Messer—O no, of course, not yours!'
His lips never changed from their expression of smiling good-humour.
'Entirely at mine,' he said.
She gave a little gasp. His subtlety was too chill a thing for her fire; but she struggled against her quenching by it.