“Well, Gerardo.”
“I am ready, your excellence.”
“Write, then.”
“I but await the words.”
“And who, think you, is to provide them?”
“Who but your grace, whose letter it is to be?”
“Gramercy! what, you writers, find you not the words? What avails your art without the words? I doubt you are an impostor, Gerardo.”
“Nay, Signora, I am none. I might make shift to put your highness's speech into grammar, as well as writing. But I cannot interpret your silence. Therefore speak what is in your heart, and I will empaper it before your eyes.”
“But there is nothing in my heart. And sometimes I think I have got no heart.”
“What is in your mind, then?”