“In the pages of Bojardo and those other poets whom you have read too earnestly there may be.”
“Nay, there speaks your cynicism,” she chided me. “But even if my ideals be too lofty, would you have me descend from the height of such a pinnacle to the level of the Lord Giovanni—a weak-spirited craven, as witnesses the manner in which he permitted the Borgias to mishandle him; a cruel and unjust tyrant, as witnesses his dealing with you, to seek no further instances; a weak, ignorant, pleasure-loving fool, devoid of wit and barren of ambition? Such is the man they would have me wed. Do not tell me, Lazzaro, that it were difficult to find a better one than this.”
“I do not mean to tell you that. After all, though it be my trade to jest, it is not my way to deal in falsehood. I think, Madonna, that if we were to have you write for us such an appreciation of the High and Mighty Giovanni Sforza, you would leave a very faithful portrait for the enlightenment of posterity.”
“Lazzaro, do not jest!” she cried. “It is your help I need. That is the reason why I am come to you with the tale of what they seek to force me into doing.”
“To force you?” I cried. “Would they dare so much?”
“Aye, if I resist them further.”
“Why, then,” I answered, with a ready laugh, “do not resist them further.”
“Lazzaro!” she cried, her accents telling of a spirit wounded by what she accounted a flippancy.
“Mistake me not,” I hastened to elucidate. “It is lest they should employ force and compel you at once to enter into this union that I counsel you to offer no resistance. Beg for a little time, vaguely suggesting that you are not indisposed to the Lord Giovanni’s suit.”
“That were deceit,” she protested.