“Thou seek to read my acts—thou! Leave me.”
The man—a fair-looking man enough—bowed, and with quiet, measured steps withdrew.
Then she came back to the sleeping man.
“How beautiful he is,” she thought. Never in her dreams had she imagined him so beautiful. She almost cried with rapture as she looked on him. Was this love? Yes. Guilty love? Nay; wait and read. Should she wake him? No.
She removed her mask to wipe away her tears (fallen to good purpose—as nearly all tears fall), and in those few moments her face was seen—not by the youth upon the marble seat, but by the scowling eyes of a tall, haughty-looking man, glaring from a treacherous gondola, which had quietly stolen up, under cover of the night, and there lay still below the terrace. Beside him stood a mean-looking creature whom he called Rustighello. “It is she!”
“Truly, Signor.”
“And the youth, who is he?”
“A poor adventurer, without parents or country; people say he is brave.”
“What will not people say, good Rustighello? Try every art to lure him to Ferrara, and to me—”
“There is no need for art. By chance, he will set out with Gruirani for Ferrara.”