"It is accomplished!"
"I am glad," she said, and saw not the look of anguish that passed over his face. "I came to ask you," her bosom was heaving strangely, "to be near me when the pageant breaks. I am afraid of Raniero Frangipani!"
"Yet you chose the role of Proserpina, knowing—" He broke off, a shiver of constraint in his voice.
"Who told you?"
He pointed in the direction where his informant had disappeared.
"Messer Gualtiero! You knew," he then continued slowly, "that Raniero would be your companion in the pageant!"
Ilaria pouted.
"Mine is the part of Lady of Sorrows—Queen of the Underworld!"
"And the Frangipani's society is the price you pay for your high estate."