"Is it positively certain that he is incapable of begetting a child?"
"No, when he is well he does his best; but there seems no likelihood of his ardour having any happy results. There was some ground to hope in the first six months of the marriage, but since he has had the gout so badly there seems reason to fear lest his amorous ecstasies should have a fatal termination. Sometimes he warts to approach her, but she dare not let him, and this pains her very much."
I was struck with a lively sense of Lucrezia's merits, and was just revealing to her the sentiments which she had re-awakened in my breast, when the marchioness appeared in the garden, followed by a page and a young lady.
I affected great reverence as she came up to us; and as if we had given each other the word, she answered me in atone of ceremonious politeness.
"I have come on an affair of the highest importance," she said, "and if I fail I shall for ever lose the reputation of a diplomatist?"
"Who is the other diplomatist with whom you are afraid of failing?"
"'Tis yourself."
"Then your battle is over, for I consent before I know what you ask. I only make a reserve on one point."
"So much the worse, as that may turn out to be just what I want you to do. Tell me what it is."
"I was going to Rome, when the Abbe Galiani told me that Donna Lucrezia was here with you."