“And yet, Gonzaga,” she answered him, “I left you singing below when I came away.”
“—To wanton it here in the moonlight with that damned swashbuckler, that brigand, that kennel-bred beast of a sbirro!”
“Gonzaga! You would dare!”
“Dare?” he mocked her, beside himself with passion. “Is it you who speak of daring—you, the niece of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, a lady of the noble and illustrious house of Rovere, who cast yourself into the arms of a low-born vassal such as that, a masnadiero, a bandit, a bravo? And can you yet speak of daring, and take that tone with me, when shame should strike you either dead or dumb?”
“Gonzaga,” she answered him, her face as white as his own, but her voice steady and hard with anger, “leave me now—upon the instant, or I will have you flogged—flogged to the bone.”
A moment he stared at her like a man dazed. Then he tossed his arms to Heaven, and letting them fall heavily to his sides, he shrugged his shoulders and laughed evilly. But of going he made no shift.
“Call your men,” he answered her, in a choking voice. “Do your will on me. Flog me to the bone or to the death—let that be the reward of all that I have done, all that I have risked, all that I have sacrificed to serve you. It were of a piece with your other actions.”
Her eyes sought his in the gloom, her bosom heaving wildly in her endeavours to master herself before she spoke.
“Messer Gonzaga,” said she at last, “I'll not deny that you served me faithfully in the matter of my escape from Urbino——”
“Why speak of it?” he sneered. “It was a service of which you but avail yourself until another offered on whom you might bestow your favour and the supreme command of your fortress. Why speak of it?”