"Devilry expresses it," said a sly secretary in black.
Molly in dreams, soft as a child and glossy with sleep, looked too beautiful for a disturbing hand to dare anything that night. It would have been the act of a brute, not Amilcare's act. In small things he was all gentleness. He crept into bed like a cat, fearful of waking her, and next morning contrived, by a fit of coughing, to waken her no more than half. The rest he did by methods equally adroit, until by imperceptible degrees she learned that Rome might give no ease to her feet. He had her in the saddle and all the baggage-mules away an hour after the sun.
Arrived at Foligno, he found that his great enemy was at sanctuary in the Convent of Olivet, biting his nails in a red fume there. Hidden behind spires of cypress, Olivet stood outside the walls, a sun-dyed white building deep under brown eaves. Cesare, it was reported, was quite alone with his moods, now consumed by fidgety remorse for what he might have lost in his brother's blood, now confident and inclined to blusterous hilarity, now shuddering under an obsession of nerves. In any guise he was dangerous, but worst of all when the black fit of suspicion was upon him. So he now seemed; for being told who waited upon him, he refused point-blank to see anybody. Amilcare, at the door, heard his "Vattene, vattene! Non seccami!" ("Out, out! Don't pester me!") rocking down the dim passages of the house; and Molly, whom this sudden new expedition had bereft of what wit she had, turned pale to hear the roaring beast.
"Ah, love, love, love, let us run away! I like not this empty place," whimpered the girl, holding her husband's arm; but he gently removed her hand, kissed it, and held it.
"Courage, dear one; I shall be by thy side. Much depends upon this adventure," he urged in fervent whispers, knowing how much to a tittle.
To the monk who came out, distended with Cesare's explosives, he addressed himself in a vernacular too fluid for Molly to catch up.
"I pray you, reverend brother, recommend me yet once more to the feet of his Resplendency, saying that not I alone supplicate his favours. Add that I have with me, to present, my most beautiful wife, that she may assure him with her own lips how very much she is his slave."
The pantomime of piteous beseeching hands, of eyebrows exquisitely arched, told more than his words. They showed to a hair's breadth how far he expected, how far was prepared, to tempt his customer. No pedlar before a doorful of girls' sidelong heads could more deftly have marketed his wares. The monk, too, sidled his head; he pursed his mouth, furrowed with a finger in his dewlap, tried to appraise the wares. But to allow this would have been to forestall the market.
"Ah, for love of the saints, go, my brother!" he was entreated, with gentle persistence; and so worked upon, he waddled away.
Amilcare let fall a hearty sigh, and considered Molly with anxiety. He had not dared to say a word to her of what her entertainer was, or what her part should be. Premeditation might throw her out of balance, conscious art might exhibit her a scheming courtesan; just in her artlessness lay all her magic. No, no; he trusted her. She was still adorably English—witness her on the ship! He could see how she would do, how the sight would ravish him, lover as he was; for the rest, he must trust to his early calculations. Yes! he was ready to stake everything upon this move. The Borgia would be at her feet: so at his feet also. Oh, wise, wise Amilcare!