''Twill the sooner lie prone.' He turned to my lady. 'Wouldst like to add him to Cicada and thy monkey, and carry him along with us?'
'Nay,' she said pettishly, 'I have enough of monstrosities. Will you keep me in the sun all day?'
'Well,' said Lanti, gathering his reins, 'it puzzles me only how the Abbot could part thus with his discretion.'
'Nay, Illustrious,' answered the landlord, 'he was in a grievous pet, 'tis stated. But, there! prophecy will no more be denied than love. A' must out or kill. And so he had to let Messer Bembo go his gaits with a letter only to this monastery and that, in providence of a sanctuary, and one even, 'tis whispered, to the good Duchess Bona herself. But here, by the token, he comes.'
He bowed deferentially, backing apart. Messer Lanti stared, and gave a profound whistle.
'O, indeed!' he muttered, showing his strong teeth, 'this Giuseppe propagates the faith very prettily!'
Madam Beatrice was staring too. She expressed no further impatience to be gone for the moment. A young man, followed by some kitchen company adoring and obsequious, had come out by the door, and stood regarding her quietly. She had expected some apparition of austerity, some lean, neurotic friar, wasting between dogmatism and sensuality. And instead she saw an angel of the breed that wrestled with Jacob.
He was so much a child in appearance, with such an aspect of wonder and prettiness, that the first motion of her heart towards him was like the leap of motherhood. Then she laughed, with a little dye come to her cheek, and eyed him over the screen of feathers she held in her hand.
He advanced into the sunlight.
'Greeting, sweet Madonna,' he said, in his grave young voice, 'and fair as your face be your way!' and he was offering to pass her.