“And so it is by such sophistries as these that your presumption came to life?”
That stung him. Quivering with the passion that obsessed him, he stepped close up to her.
“Tell me, Madonna—why shall we account presumption in Romeo Gonzaga a suit that in a nameless adventurer we encourage?” he asked, his voice thick and tremulous.
“Have a care,” she bade him.
“A care of what?” he flashed back. “Answer me, Monna Valentina. Am I so base a man that by the very thought of love for you I must presume, whilst you can give yourself into the arms of this swashbuckling bravo, and take his kisses? Your reasoning sorts ill with your deeds.”
“Craven!” she answered him. “Dog that you are!” And before the blaze of passion in her eyes he recoiled, his courage faltering. She cropped her anger in mid-career, and in a dangerously calm voice she bade him see to it that by morning he was no longer in Roccaleone. “Profit by the night,” she counselled him, “and escape the vigilance of Gian Maria as best you can. Here you shall not stay.”
At that a great fear took possession of him, putting to flight the last remnant of his anger. Nor fear alone was it, to do him full justice. It was also the realisation that if he would take payment from her for this treatment of him, if he would slake his vengeance, he must stay. One plan had failed him. But his mind was fertile, and he might devise another that might succeed and place Gian Maria in Roccaleone. Thus should he be amply venged. She was turning away, having pronounced his banishment, but he sprang after her, and upon his knees he now besought her piteously to hear him yet awhile.
And she, regretting her already of her harshness, and thinking that perhaps in his jealousy he had been scarce responsible for what he had said, stood still to hear him.
“Not that, not that, Madonna,” he wailed, his tone suggesting the imminence of tears. “Do not send me away. If die I must, let me die here at Roccaleone, helping the defence to my last breath. But do not cast me out to fall into the hands of Gian Maria. He will hang me for my share in this business. Do not requite me thus, Madonna. You owe me a little, surely, and if I was mad when I talked to you just now, it was love of you that drove me—love of you and suspicion of that man of whom none of us know anything. Madonna, be pitiful a little. Suffer me to remain.”
She looked down at him, her mind swayed between pity and contempt. Then pity won the day in the wayward but ever gentle heart of Valentina. She bade him rise.