“Tell me,” she besought him feverishly.
He set his lute on the seat beside him, and his eyes looked round in apprehensive survey.
“Not here,” he muttered. “There are too many ears in the Palace of Urbino. Will it please you to walk in the gardens? I will tell you there.”
They rose together, so ready was her assent. They looked at each other for a second. Then, side by side, they passed down the wide marble steps that led from the terrace to the box-flanked walks of the gardens. Here, among the lengthening shadows, they paced in silence for a while, what time Gonzaga sought for words in which to propound his plan. At length, grown impatient, Valentina urged him with a question.
“What I counsel, Madonna,” he answered her, “is open defiance.”
“Such a course I am already pursuing. But whither will it lead me?”
“I do not mean the mere defiance of words—mere protestations that you will not wed Gian Maria. Listen, Madonna! The Castle of Roccaleone is your property. It is perhaps the stoutest fortress in all Italy, to-day. Lightly garrisoned and well-provisioned it might withstand a year's siege.”
She turned to him, having guessed already the proposal in his mind, and for all that at first her eyes looked startled, yet presently they kindled to a light of daring that augured well for a very stout adventure. It was a wildly romantic notion, this of Gonzaga's, worthy of a poet's perfervid brain, and yet it attracted her by its unprecedented flavour.
“Could it be done?” she wondered, her eyes sparkling at the anticipation of such a deed.
“It could, indeed it could,” he answered, with an eagerness no whit less than her own. “Immure yourself in Roccaleone, and thence hurl defiance at Urbino and Babbiano, refusing to surrender until they grant your terms—that you are to marry as you list.”