A Jay of Italy

by Bernard Capes

'What shall I reply then?'

'Do you put the case hypothetically? I should answer broadly, on its merits, somehow as follows: "By the right round of intrigue, O Duke, completing love's cycle."'

'O Messer! How am I to understand you?'

'Why, easily—(I speak as one disinterested). Call it the cycle of the ring, and thus it runs: From the husband to the wife; from the wife to her paramour; from the paramour to his doxy; from the doxy back to the husband.'

'His doxy? O beast! Hath he a second?'

'Or had. I go by report, which says—but then I 'm no scandalmonger—that a certain lady, Caprona's widow, finds herself scorned of late.'

'And it comes from her—to me? For what? To destroy them both?'

'A shrewd suggestion. In that case your moods run together.'

'Monna Beatrice! She sends it?'

'Does she? Quote me not for it. It were ill so to requite my over-fond friendship. Thou hast the ring. I wish thee well with it. Dost mark?'