GUIDO
Such observations are court etiquette.
GRACIOSA (With an outburst of disgust.) Take it back! Though how can you bear to look at it, far less to have it touching you! And only yesterday I was angry because I had not seen the Duke riding past!
GUIDO
Seen him! here! riding past!
GRACIOSA Old Ursula told me that the Duke had gone by with twenty men, riding down toward the convent at the border. And I flung my sewing-bag straight at her head because she had not called me.
GUIDO That was idle gossip, I fancy. The Duke rarely rides abroad without my—(he stops)—without my lavish patron Eglamore, the friend of all honest merchants.
GRACIOSA But that abominable Eglamore may have been with him. I heard nothing to the contrary.
GUIDO
True, madonna, true. I had forgotten you did not see them.
GRACIOSA
No. What is he like, this Eglamore? Is he as appalling to look at as the
Duke?
GUIDO
Madonna! but wise persons do not apply such adjectives to dukes. And wise
persons do not criticize Count Eglamore's appearance, either, now that
Eglamore is indispensable to the all-powerful Duke of Florence.
GRACIOSA
Indispensable?