There abode with him the memory of the fool's words, and the suggestion that in the heart of Valentina was framed the image of some other man. Now, loving her, in his own coarse way, and as he understood love, the rejected Duke waxed furiously jealous of this other at whose existence Peppe had hinted. This unknown stood in his path to Valentina, and to clear that path it suggested itself to Gian Maria that the simplest method was to remove the obstacle. But first he must discover it, and to this he thought, with a grim smile, the fool might—willy-nilly—help him.
He returned to his own apartments, and whilst the preparations for his departure were toward, he bade Alvaro summon Martin Armstadt—the captain of his guard. To the latter his orders were short and secret.
“Take four men,” he bade him, “and remain in Urbino after I am gone. Discover the haunts of Peppe the fool. Seize him, and bring him after me. See that you do it diligently, and let no suspicion of your task arise.”
The bravo—he was little better, for all that he commanded the guards of the Duke of Babbiano—bowed, and answered in his foreign, guttural voice that his Highness should be obeyed.
Thereafter Gian Maria made shift to depart. He took his leave of Guidobaldo, promising to return within a few days for the nuptials, and leaving an impression upon the mind of his host that his interview with Valentina had been very different from the actual.
It was from Valentina herself that Guidobaldo was to learn, after Gian Maria's departure, the true nature of that interview, and what had passed between his niece and his guest. She sought him out in his closet, whither he had repaired, driven thither by the demon of gout that already inhabited his body, and was wont to urge him at times to isolate himself from his court. She found him reclining upon a couch, seeking distraction in a volume of the prose works of Piccinino. He was a handsome man, of excellent shape, scarce thirty years of age. His face was pale, and there were dark circles round his eyes, and lines of pain about his strong mouth.
He sat up at her advent, and setting his book upon the table beside him, he listened to her angry complaints.
At first, the courtly Montefeltro inclined to anger upon learning of the roughness with which Gian Maria had borne himself. But presently he smiled.
“When all is said, I see in this no great cause for indignation,” he assured her. “I acknowledge that it may lack the formality that should attend the addresses of a man in the Duke's position to a lady in yours. But since he is to wed you, and that soon, why be angered at that he seeks to pay his court like any other man?”
“I have talked in vain, then,” she answered petulantly, “and I am misunderstood. I do not intend to wed this ducal clod you have chosen to be my husband.”