IV
"WHY COME YE NAT TO COURTE?"
"Le donne e i cavalier, gli affanni e gli agi,
Che ne invogliava araore e cortesia."
The little house—discreet affair of eaves modest as drooped eyelids, of latticed windows, of wistaria before and a bower of willows behind—was found and furnished out of the girls' store and the Captain's credit. Donna Matura, a brown old woman, hideous, toothless, and inclined to swooning, was installed as duenna. She was, indeed, owner of the house and furniture, for which Olimpia paid and the Captain promised to pay; but that did not appear until much later. There was a great charm, not without a certain deal of luxury, in the place. Of course there was a garden—a bright green nest of flowering trees and shrubs; in the middle was a grass-plat; in that, again, a bronze fountain, which had the form of three naked boys back to back, and an inscription to the effect that it had been set up by a certain Galeotto Moro, in the days of Marquess Lionel, "in honour of Saints Peter and Paul and of the Virgin Deipara," upon some special occasion of family thanksgiving. The weeping willows—themselves fountains of green—sprayed over a stone seat. The place bore signs of an honourable past; it was falling now gently to a comely decay; but it answered every purpose. All promised well. So much Captain Mosca was given to understand; yet it was hinted that his promises were not complete. "My life and soul," cried he on his knees in the garden, "the little affair is a matter of three minutes." It proved to be a matter of more than three months and was then accomplished in another way and with other results than had been looked for. Thus it was.
When Angioletto had been assured of the nesting of his mate, he dressed himself point-device and went to Court to deliver his credentials. He found the lady upon whom so much depended, at the Schifanoia. Madama Lionella d'Este, wife of the Count Guarino Guarini, was a fresh-coloured, lusty young woman of three and twenty, not at all in love with her husband, but very much in love with love. The Captain of Lances had said truly when he shrugged her off as no beauty. Large-limbed she was, the shape of a boy, with a long mouth and small eyes, full-lipped, big in foot and hand. Yet she was a very merry soul, frank if not free in her speech and gesture, and though liable to bursts of angry temper, for the most part as innocent of malice as a tiger cub. If you remember her an Este, you will forgive her much, excuse her everything, and rather like her.
Angioletto, who found her sitting on the grass among her ladies, advanced with great ceremony and many bows. Madama did not get up; no one did; so Angioletto had to step gingerly into a ring of roguish women to deliver his letter. Lionella scampered through it, reddening with pleasure; she beckoned him with smiles to sit beside her.
"We are making rose-garlands to adorn our pretty heads," she said, laughing. "Come and sit by me, Angioletto, and sing to us. Who knows but what, if you are good, we shall not crown you with one of them?"
It was a great merit of Angioletto's that he always took things and men (especially women) as he found them. Such as they were he could be for the time. He was by no means waxen; elastic rather. Down he plumped, accordingly, cross-legged by his new mistress, and warbled a canzone to the viola which enchanted the lady.
"More, more, more!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Oh, boy, I could have you a prince for less than that! What a throstle-pipe you have!"