“I would do so,” Francesca said, as she fixed her eyes with a rigid look upon her brother, “were it only to make him feel what I have endured.”
“Before our very eyes,” Jacopa remarked, “he received without apology or explanation, a dainty billet from some shameless mistress.”
“Ay,” added Baptista, who had by this time concluded his careless scrutiny, and was listening to the conversation, “and if my memory serves me not a treacherous trick, that same page, who bore the silken-bound counsel, I have seen in attendance on our dearly loved friend, Donati’s widow.”
“If I had thought so,” exclaimed Jacopa, “I would have twisted the neck of the young go-between, even in the presence of Buondlemonte.”
“No, no,” Francesca said, as she waved her hand, “it cannot be. He would not—he dare not—offer me so great an insult as to receive a love-token from one of that house. He dare not, reckless as he is, place me in competition with the puling baby Donati calls her daughter.”
Baptista was about to repeat his opinion concerning the identity of the page, but he had scarcely commenced before Buondlemonte entered the apartment. Both Jacopa and Baptista exchanged an apparently cordial greeting with the new comer, and then retired, leaving him alone with Francesca.
“At last, Buondlemonte,” Francesca said, when they were left alone, “at last thou hast found time to see me.”
“The performance of a service for a friend,” Buondlemonte observed, as he touched with his lips the white hand which was extended toward him, “prevented the earlier presentation of my duty to thee.”
“It was not well,” she remarked, “after so long an absence, to give others a preference, and leave your promised wife neglected, if not forgotten. This was not an act of the cherished companion of former days; it was not the act of the noble youth who left Florence five years ago, betrothed to Francesca Amedi; thou no longer lovest me, Buondlemonte, or thou wouldst not have been thus slow to visit me.”
Buondlemonte thought that the charge might have been made with equal justice at any period of his existence, but he did not give utterance to the thought.