I make no doubt had been, in his turn, persuaded by the Lord of
Pesaro--to leave her convent and her studies, and to take up her life
at the Sforza Palace, where Filippo held by now a sort of petty court of
his own.

And now it fell out that the Lord Giovanni was oftener at the Palace
than at the Castle, and during that summer Pesaro was given over to
such merrymaking as it had never known before. There was endless
lute-thrumming and recitation of verses by a score of parasite poets
whom the Lord Giovanni encouraged, posing now as a patron of letters;
there were balls and masques and comedies beyond number, and we were as
gay as though Italy held no Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentinois, who was
sweeping northward with his all-conquering flood of mercenaries.

But one there was who, though the very centre of all these merry doings,
the very one in whose honour and for whose delectation they were set
afoot, seemed listless and dispirited in that boisterous crowd. This
was Madonna Paola, to whom, rumour had it, that her kinsman, the Lord
Giovanni, was paying a most ardent suit.

I saw her daily now, and often would she choose me for her sole
companion; often, sitting apart with me, would she unburden her heart
and tell me much that I am assured she would have told no other. A
strange thing may it have seemed, this confidence between the Fool and
the noble Lady of Santafior--my Holy Flower of the Quince, as in my
thoughts I grew to name her. Perhaps it may have been because she found
me ever ready to be sober at her bidding, when she needed sober company
as those other fools--the greater fools since they accounted themselves
wise--could not afford her.

That winter adventure betwixt Cagli and Pesaro was a link that bound us
together, and caused her to see under my motley and my masking smile
the true Lazzaro Biancomonte whom for a little season she had known. And
when we were alone it had become her wont to call me Lazzaro, leaving
that other name that they had given me for use when others were at hand.
Yet never did she refer to my condition, or wound me by seeking to spur
me to the ambition to become myself again. Haply she was content that I
should be as I sas, since had I sought to become different it must have
entailed my quitting Pesaro, and this poor lady was so bereft of friends
that she could not afford to lose even the sympathy of the despised
jester.

It was in those days that I first came to love her with as