'Lady, I come to bid you take a hand in your own and your brother's reinstatement. Your petition to the Duke is all that is needed now to persuade him to the step which I have urged; to march against the usurper Theodore and cast him out.
It took her breath away. 'You have urged this! You, my lord? Let me send for my brother that he may thank you, that he may know that he has at least one stout brave friend in the world.'
'His friend and your servant, madonna.' He bore her white hand to his lips, and there were tears in her eyes as she looked upon his bowed handsome head. 'My hopes, my plans, my schemes for you are to bear fruit at last.'
'Your schemes for me?'
Her brows were knit over her moist dark eyes. He laughed. A jovial, debonair, and laughter-loving gentleman, this Francesco Busone of Carmagnola.
'So as to provide a cause disposing the Duke of Milan to proceed against the Regent Theodore. The hour has come, madonna. It needs but your petition to Filippo Maria, and the army marches. So that I command it, I will see justice done to your brother.'
'So that you command it? Who else should?' Carmagnola's bright face was overcast. 'There is Bellarion Cane.'
'That knave!' She recoiled, her countenance troubled. 'He is the Regent's man. It was he who helped the Regent to Vercelli and to the lordship of Genoa.'
'Which he never could have done,' Carmagnola assured her, 'but that I abetted him. I saw that thus I should provide a reason for action against the Regent when later I should come to be on the Duke's side.'
'Ah! That was shrewd! To feed his ambition until he overreached himself.'