'I thought you said we should remain here until spring.' Her tone revealed the petulance that was ever just under the surface of her nature.
'I was not to know,' he answered her, 'that in the meantime the duchy would go to pieces.'
'Why should you care? It is not your duchy. Though a man might have made it so by this.'
'To make you a duchess, eh?' Facino smiled. His tone was quiet, but it bore the least strain of bitterness. This was an old argument between them, though Bellarion heard it now for the first time. 'There are obstacles supplied by honour. Shall I enumerate them?'
'I know them by heart, your obstacles of honour.' She thrust out a lip that was very full and red, suggesting the strong life within her. 'They did not suffice to curb Pandolfo or Buonterzo, and they are at least as well-born as you.'
'We will leave my birth out of the discussion, madonna.'
'Your reluctance to be reminded of it is natural enough,' she insisted with malice.
He turned away, and moved across to one of the tall mullioned windows, trailing his feet through the pine-needles and slim boughs of evergreens with which the floor was strewn in place of rushes, unprocurable at this season of the year. His thumbs were thrust into the golden girdle that cinctured his trailing houppelande of crimson velvet edged with lynx fur.
He stood a moment in silence, his broad square shoulders to the room, looking out upon the wintry landscape.
'The snow is falling more heavily,' he said at last.