'To self-contempt? It is the only contempt that you will ever know. But why should you know that?'
'Because all my life, until this moment, I have served for hire. Because, if this adventure had not come to me by God's grace, in such worthless endeavours would my life continue. Now—now that I know the opinion in which you must hold such service—it is over and done for me. When I shall have served you to your goal, I shall have performed my last.'
There fell a long pause between them. At last: 'When my brother is crowned in Casale, he will need a servant such as you, Messer Carmagnola.'
'Aye, but shall you, madonna? Shall you?'
She looked at him wistfully, smiling a little. He was very handsome, very splendid and very brave, a knight to win a lady's trust, and she was a very lonely, friendless lady in sore need of a stout arm and a gallant heart to help her through the trials of this life.
The tapering fingers of her disengaged hand descended gently upon his golden head.
'Shall I not?' she asked with a little tremulous laugh. 'Shall I not?'
'Why, then, madonna, if you will accept my service, it shall be yours for as long as I endure. It shall never be another's. Valeria! My Valeria!'
That hand upon his head, overheating its very indifferent contents, drove him now to an excessive precipitancy.
He carried the hand he held almost fiercely to his lips.