She laid a hand upon his arm to stay him.
“Not now, Gonzaga,” she begged, “I am in no humour for your song, sweet though I doubt not that it be.”
A shade of disappointment and ruffled vanity crossed his face. Women had been wont to listen greedily to his strambotti, enthralled by the cunning of the words and the seductive sweetness of his voice.
“Ah, never look so glum,” she cried, smiling now at his crestfallen air. “If I have not hearkened now, I will again. Forgive me, good Gonzaga,” she begged him, with a sweetness no man could have resisted. And then a sigh fluttered from her lips; a sound that was like a sob came after it, and her hand closed upon his arm.
“They are breaking my heart, my friend. Oh, that you had left me at peace in the Convent of Santa Sofia!”
He turned to her, all solicitude and gentleness, to inquire the reason of her outburst.
“It is this odious alliance into which they seek to force me with that man from Babbiano. I have told Guidobaldo that I will not wed this Duke. But as profitably might I tell Fate that I will not die. The one is as unheeding as the other.”
Gonzaga sighed profoundly, in sympathy, but said nothing.
Here was a grief to which he could not minister, a grievance that he could do nothing to remove. She turned from him with a gesture of impatience.
“You sigh,” she exclaimed, “and you bewail the cruelty of the fate in store for me. But you can do nothing for me. You are all words, Gonzaga. You can call yourself more than my friend—my very slave. Yet, when I need your help, what do you offer me? A sigh!”