A wearisome silence succeeded: the Duke first broke it saying:
"Titta!"
"My Lord."
"Ah! it would have been better to have died in the battle of Lepanto."
"It would."
"Tell me, is not my wife a handsome woman? Is she not graceful, elegant, endowed with all the gracious manners of noble birth?"
"Yes, my Lord, yes."
"And would it not seem sacrilege to extinguish in a moment with one treacherous blow so much beauty and genius?"
"It would have been better, my Lord, to have died in the battle of Lepanto!"
The Duke arose, wiping the perspiration dripping from his brow;—he walked the room restlessly: then suddenly stopping, and fixing his eyes on Titta, said: