anni's valour her opinions were
undergoing the same change as the verses had caused them to undergo in
the matter of his intellect.

Myself, I was amazed. For here was a Lord Giovanni I seemed never to
have known, and I was eager to behold the sequel to so fine a prologue.

CHAPTER IX. THE FOOL-AT-ARMS

That valorous bearing that the Lord Giovanni showed whilst, with Madonna
Paola's glance upon him, his fear of seeming afraid was greater than his
actual fear of our assailants, he cast aside like a mantle once he was
within the walls of his Castle, and under the eyes of none save the page
and myself, for I followed idly at a respectful distance.

He stood irresolute and livid of countenance, his eagerness to arm and
to lead his mercenaries and his knights all departed out of him. It was
that curiosity of mine to see the sequel to his stout words that had led
me to follow him, and what I saw was, after all, no more than I might
have looked for--the proof that his big talk of sallying forth to battle
was but so much acting. Yet it must have been acting of such a quality
as to have deceived even his very self.

Now, however, by the main steps, he halted in the cool gloom of the
gallery, and I saw that fear had caught his heart in an icy grip and was
squeezing it empty. In his irresolution he turned about, and his gloomy
eye fell upon me loitering in the porch. At that he turned to the page
who followed in obedience to his command.

"Begone!" he growled at the lad, "I will have Boccadoro, there, to help
me arm." And with a poor attempt at mirth--"The act is a madness," he
muttered, "and so it is fitting that folly should put on my armour for
it. Come with me, you," he bade me, and I, obediently, gladly, went
forward and up the wide stone staircase after him, leaving the page to
speculate as he listed on the matter of his abrupt dismissal.

I read the Lord Giovanni's motives, as clearly as if they had been
written for me by his own hand. The opinion in which I might hold him
was to him a matter of so small account that he little cared that I
should be the witness of the weakness which he feared was about to
overcome him--nay, which had overcome him already. Was I not the one man
in Pesaro who already knew his true nature, as revealed by that matter
of the verses which I had written, and of which he had assumed the
authorship? He had no shame before me, for I already knew the very
worst of him, and he was confid