hour I had beheld, whose companionship seemed to me a thing sweet and
desirable, and whom I felt that I might love as I had loved Falcone.
Her too they would drive forth, and with a brutality and cruelty that
revolted me.

Later I was to perceive the reasons better, and much food for reflection
was I to derive from realizing that there are no spirits so vengeful, so
fierce, so utterly intolerant, ungovernable, and feral as the spirits of
the devout when they conceive themselves justified to anger.

All the sweet teaching of Charity and brotherly love and patience is
jettisoned, and by the most amazing paradox that Christianity has ever
known, Catholic burns heretic, and heretic butchers Catholic, all for
the love of Christ; and each glories devoutly in the deed, never heeding
the blasphemy of his belief that thus he obeys the sweet and gentle
mandates of the God Incarnate.

Thus, then, my mother now, commanding that hideous deed with a mind at
peace in pharisaic self-righteousness.

But not again would I stand by as I had stood by in the case of Falcone,
and let her cruel, pietistic will be done. I had grown since then, and I
had ripened more than I was aware. It remained for this moment to reveal
to me the extent. Besides, the subtle influence of sex--all unconscious
of it as I was--stirred me now to prove my new-found manhood.

"Stay!" I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold
and steady, and my breathing resumed the normal.

He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding.

"You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have
been bidden. But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them
dares to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him
will I kill with these two hands."

Never was consternation more profound than that which I flung amongst
them by those words. Giojoso fell to trembling; behind him, Rinolfo, the
cause of all this garboil, stared with round big eyes; whilst my mother,
all a-quiver, clutched at her bosom and looked at me fearfully, but
spoke no word.

I smiled upon them, towering there, conscious and glad of my height for
the first time in my life.

"Well?" I demanded of Giojoso. "For what do you wait? About it, sir, and
do as my mother has commanded you."

He turned to her, all bent and grovelling, arms outstretched in
ludicrous bewilderment, every line of him beseeching guidance along this
path