harp ferocity, and dubbing them beasts
and swine, they caught the false ring of his fierceness, which was
as unlike the true as the ring of lead is unlike that of silver. They
jeered him insults, they mimicked his tenor voice, which excitement
had rendered shrill, and they bade him go thrum a lute for his lady's
delectation, and leave men's work to men.

His anger rose, and they lost patience; and from showing their teeth
in laughter, they began to show them in snarls. At this his ferocity
deserted him. Brushing past Fortemani, who stood cold and contemptuous
by the doorway, watching the failure he had expected, he returned with
burning cheeks and bitter words to Madonna Valentina.

She was dismayed at the tale he bore her, magnified to cover his own
shame. Francesco sat quietly drumming on the sill, his eyes upon the
moonlit garden below, and never by word or sign suggesting that he might
succeed where Romeo had failed. At last she turned to him.

"Could you----?" she began, and stopped, her eyes wandering back to
Gonzaga, loath to further wound a pride that was very sore already. On
the instant Francesco rose.

"I might try, Madonna," he said quietly, "although Messer Gonzaga's
failure gives me little hope. And yet, it may be that he has taken the
keen edge from their assurance, and that, thus, an easier task awaits
me. I will try, Madonna." And with that he went.

"He will succeed, Gonzaga," she said, after he had gone. "He is a man of
war, and knows the words to which these fellows have no answer."

"I wish him well of his errand," sneered Gonzaga, his pretty face white
now with sullenness. "And I'll wager you he fails."

But Valentina disdained the offer whose rashness was more than
proven when, at the end of some ten minutes, Francesco re-entered, as
imperturbable as when he went.

"They are quiet now, Madonna," he announced.

She looked at him questioningly. "How did you accomplish it?" she
inquired.

"I had a little difficulty," he said, "yet not over-much." His eye roved
to Gonzaga, and he smiled. "Messer Gonzaga is too gentle with them. Too
true a courtier to avail himself of the brutality that is necessary
when we deal with brutes. You should not disdain to use your hands upon
them," he admonished the fop in all seriousness, and without a trace of
irony. Nor did Gonzaga suspect any.

"I, soil my hands on that vermin?" he cried, in a voice of horror. "I
would die sooner."

"Or else soon after,"