"A woman may not smile on you, may not give you a kind word, may not
suffer you to sing to her, but you must conclude she is enamoured of you.
And if I turned to you in my hour of need, as you remind me, needs that
be a sign of my infatuation? Does every cavalier so think when a
helpless woman turns to him in her distress? But even so," she
continued, "how should all that diminish the peril you now talk of? Even
were your suit with me to prosper, would that make you any the less Romeo
Gonzaga, the butt of the anger of my uncle and Gian Maria? Rather do I
think that it should make you more."
But he disillusioned her. He did not scruple, in his angry mood, to lay
before her his reasonings that as her husband he would be screened.
She laughed aloud at that.
"And so it is by such sophistries as these that your presumption came to
life?"
That stung him. Quivering with the passion that obsessed him, he stepped
close up to her.
"Tell me, Madonna--why shall we account presumption in Romeo Gonzaga a
suit that in a nameless adventurer we encourage?" he asked, his voice
thick and tremulous.
"Have a care," she bade him.
"A care of what?" he flashed back. "Answer me, Monna Valentina. Am I so
base a man that by the very thought of love for you I must presume,
whilst you can give yourself into the arms of this swashbuckling bravo,
and take his kisses? Your reasoning sorts ill with your deeds."
"Craven!" she answered him. "Dog that you are!" And before the blaze of
passion in her eyes he recoiled, his courage faltering.
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