"Have you heard anything of the conversation that we have had here? I dismissed you, not for my own sake, for you know that I do not keep any, even the slightest secret of my heart from you, but on their account——"
"Whose?"
"Orsini's and Don Pietro's."
"I was not aware that Don Pietro——?
"Only think! I have been speaking to them in reference to their wives and the very guilty lives which they lead. I entreated them to try a little salutary strangulation, to induce them to reform: did you hear nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Truly? come, you must have heard some little thing."
"Upon my word I did not."
"Poh! You are cross now on account of the reproof I gave you this evening. But what can I do? I get angry so easily, and afterwards I repent. What I have in my heart, I have on my tongue. I beg your pardon for it."
"Oh, my Lord!" replied the cunning Venetian, "you statesmen have always so many thoughts, so many disquietudes in your heads; the fault is ours who come to disturb you: but we mean well, and if we mistake, deserve pity. And indeed, it is not worth while to take pains for me. You took me up, I may say, from the street, and placed me on equal footing with the queens and greatest princesses in all Christendom. My life consists in revering and loving you, and strive as I may, it seems to me as if I never could love you enough."