in the little
anteroom that communicated with his bedroom. My patience was tried, for
he was singularly late in coming; fully an hour passed after all
the sounds had died down in the castle and it was known that all had
retired, and still there was no sign of him.

I asked one of the pages who lounged there waiting for their master, did
he think my lord would be in the library, and the boy was conjecturing
upon this unusual tardiness of Cavalcanti's in seeking his bed, when the
door opened, and at last he appeared.

When he found me awaiting him, a certain eagerness seemed to light
his face; a second's glance showed me that he was in the grip of some
unusual agitation. He was pale, with a dull flush under the eyes, and
the hand with which he waved away the pages shook, as did his voice when
he bade them depart, saying that he desired to be alone with me awhile.

When the two slim lads had gone, he let himself fall wearily into a
tall, carved chair that was placed near an ebony table with silver feet
in the middle of the room.

But instead of unburdening himself as I fully expected, he looked at me,
and--

"What is it, Agostino?" he inquired.

"I have thought," I answered after a moment's hesitation, "of a means by
which this unwelcome visit of Farnese's might be brought to an end."

And with that I told him as delicately as was possible that I believed
Madonna Bianca to be the lodestone that held him there, and that were
she removed from his detestable attentions, Pagliano would cease to
amuse him and he would go his ways.

There was no outburst such as I had almost looked for at the mere
suggestion contained in my faltering words. He looked at me gravely and
sadly out of that stern face of his.

"I would you had given me this advice two weeks ago," he said. "But who
was to have guessed that this pope's bastard would have so prolonged his
visit? For the rest, however, you are mistaken, Agostino. It is not he
who has dared to raise his eyes as you suppose to Bianca. Were such the
case, I should have killed him with my hands were he twenty times the
Duke of Parma. No, no. My Bianca is being honourably wooed by your
cousin Cosimo."

I looked at him, amazed. It could not be. I remembered Giuliana's words.
Giuliana did not love me, and were it as he supposed she would have seen
no cause to intervene. Rather might she have taken a malicious pleasure
in witnessing my own discomfiture, in seeing the sweet maid to w