'Hide me, Lucrezia. Hide me!'
'Most Excellent, if Madonna Beatrice suspects, she will search the house. Were it not better that you went straight up to her?'
'God forbid! You know not the manner of woman she is. Good Lord, to think what may come of this! Remember her state—the danger to the infant! Hide me; hide me at once—no matter where.'
At this moment the Duke more nearly resembled a thief detected than a descendant of Anglus, the companion of Æneas.
Lucrezia took him to her dressing-chamber and hid him in the wardrobe, a large press let into the wall, with white doors inlaid with gold; here he effaced himself in a corner among the dresses.
'What a position!' he said to himself. 'Exactly like the ridiculous heroes of Boccaccio or Sacchetti.'
Il Moro was, however, in no mood to appreciate the ridiculous side of the adventure. He drew from his bosom a small case with relics of St. Christopher; another containing a morsel of Egyptian mummy, a talisman much in vogue. In the dark he could not distinguish which was which of these treasures, so he kissed them both, crossing himself and praying.
Hearing the voices of his wife and his mistress entering the closet together, he turned cold with fear. But they were talking amicably as though nothing were amiss. Lucrezia was showing the Duchess her new house, at her own urgent request. Probably Beatrice had no clear proofs of her case, and therefore was dissembling her suspicion. It was a duel of feminine cunning.
'What! gowns here, too?' said the Duchess indifferently, as she approached the press in which her husband had settled himself down half dead with fear.
'Yes, old gowns. What I wear at home. Would your Excellence like to look?' said Lucrezia, also indifferently, and she partly opened the door.