would have
done seeing you so beset."

"Nay, that is more than I can ever think," she answered. "Who for the
sake of an unknown would have suffered such inconveniences as have
you? Who would have returned as you have returned to advise me of the
defection of my grooms? Who, when other escort failed, would have gone
the length of journeying all this way to render a service that is beyond
repayment? And, above all, who for the sake of an unknown maid would
have submitted to this travesty of yours?"

"Travesty?" quoth I, so struck by that as to interrupt her at last.
"What travesty, Madonna?"

"Why, this garb of motley that you donned the better to fool my pursuers
and that you still wear in my poor service."

I turned in the saddle to stare at her, and in the moonlight I clearly
saw her eyes meet mine. So! that was the reason of her kindness and
of the easy familiarity of her speech with me! She deemed me some
knight-errant who caracoled through Italy in quest of imperilled maidens
needing aid. Of a certainty she had gathered her knowledge of the world
from the works of Messer Bojardo, or perhaps from the "Amadis of Gaul"
of Messer Bernardo Tasso. And, no doubt, she thought that suits of
motley grew on bushes by the roadside, whence those who had a fancy for
disguise might cull them.

Well, well, it were better she should know the truth at once, and choose
such a demeanour as she considered fitting towards a Fool. I had no
stomach for the courtesies that were meant for such a man as I was not.

"Madonna, you are in error," I informed her, speaking slowly. "This garb
is no travesty. It is my usual raiment."

There was a pause and I saw the slackening of her reins. No doubt, had
we been afoot she would have halted, the better to confront me.

"How?" she asked, and a new note, imperious and chill, was sounding
already in her voice. "You would not have me understand that you are by
trade a Fool?

"Allowing that I am not a fool by birth, under what other circumstances,
think you, I should be likely to wear the garments of a Fool?"

"But this morning," she protested, after a brief pause, "when first I
met you, you were not so arrayed."

"I was arrayed even as I am now, in a cloak and hat and boots that
hid my motley from such undiscerning eyes as were yours and your
grooms'--all taken up with your own fears as you then were."

There was in the tail of that a sting, as I meant there should be,
for the sudden haugh