“There is nothing I could less desire to hear you talk upon,” said I.
“It is so very like a man to scorn the thing I could tell him after he has already heard it from me.”
“The thing you told me was false,” said I. “It was begotten of fear to see your own base interests thwarted. It is proven so by the circumstance that the Duke has sought the hand of Madonna Bianca for Cosimo d'Anguissola.”
“For Cosimo?” she cried, and I never saw her so serious and thoughtful. “For Cosimo? You are sure of this?” The urgency of her tone was such that it held me there and compelled my answer.
“I have it from my lord himself.”
She knit her brows, her eyes upon the ground; then slowly she raised them, and looked at me again, the same unusual seriousness and alertness in every line of her face.
“Why, by what dark ways does he burrow to his ends?” she mused.
And then her eyes grew lively, her expression cunning and vengeful. “I see it!” she exclaimed. “O, it is as clear as crystal. This is the Roman manner of using complaisant husbands.”
“Madonna!” I rebuked her angrily—angry to think that anyone should conceive that Bianca could be so abused.
“Gesu!” she returned with a shrug. “The thing is plain enough if you will but look at it. Here his excellency dares nothing, lest he should provoke the resentment of that uncompromising Lord of Pagliano. But once she is safely away—as Cosimo's wife...”