'Nay, I am unlearned; but I speak from my heart, and I tell your Excellency that youth comes but once in life; for what the devil—Lord forgive me!—is the use of us women when we are old? Perhaps to throw charcoal on the brazier, and to count the pots and the pans in the kitchen. Not for nothing says the proverb.
"La giovane mangia, la vecchia s'ingozza."[2]
Beauty without love is like matins without a paternoster.'
'What! say that over again!' laughed the duchess.
The old woman, thinking she had now trifled enough, again bent to the lady's ear and whispered. Beatrice ceased to laugh, her face darkened. She dismissed her attendants, excepting the little blackamoor who had no Italian. Around them was only the still and glowing air, which seemed to have paled under the fury of the heat.
'Folly!' answered the duchess; 'such chattering is of no moment.'
'Signora, I saw with my eyes, I heard with my ears. Others will tell you the like.'
'Were there many persons?'
'Ten thousand. The piazza before the Castle of Pavia was thronged.'
'What heard you?'