humour, ardour and ferocity, "unless you consent to listen to
me."

"I am ready to listen, my lord," she answered, without veiling a
repugnance that he lacked the wit to see. "But it is not necessary that
you should hold my hand, nor fitting that you should kneel."

"Not fitting?" he exclaimed. "Lady, you do not apprehend me rightly.
Is it not fitting that all of us--be we princes or vassals--shall kneel
sometimes?"

"At your prayers, my lord, yes, most fitting."

"And is not a man at his prayers when he woos? What fitter shrine in all
the world than his mistress's feet?"

"Release me," she commanded, still struggling. "Your Highness grows
tiresome and ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?"

His great, sensual mouth fell open. His white cheeks grew mottled, and
his little eyes looked up with a mighty evil gleam in their cruel blue.
A moment he stayed so, then he rose up. He released her hands as she had
bidden him, but he clutched her arms instead, which was yet worse.

"Valentina," he said, in a voice that was far from steady, "why do you
use me thus unkindly?"

"But I do not," she protested wearily, drawing back with a shudder from
the white face that was so near her own, inspiring her with a loathing
she could not repress. "I would not have your Highness look foolish, and
you cannot conceive how----"

"Can you conceive how deeply, how passionately I love you?" he broke in,
his grasp tightening.

"My lord, you are hurting me!"

"And are you not hurting me?" he snarled. "What is a pinched arm when
compared with such wounds as your eyes are dealing me? Are you not----"

She had twisted from his grasp, and in a bound she had reached the
window-door through which her attendants had passed.

"Valentina!" he cried, as he sprang after her, and it was more like the
growl of a beast than the cry of a lover. He caught her, and with scant
ceremony he dragged her back into the room.

At this, her latent loathing, contempt and indignation rose up in arms.
Never had she heard tell of a woman of her rank being used in this
fashion. She abhorred him, yet she had spared him the humiliation of
hearing it from her lips, intending to fight for her liberty with
her uncle. But now, since he handled her as though she had been a
serving-wench; since he appeared to know nothing of the deference due
to her, nothing of the delicacies of people well-born and well-bred,
she would endure his odious love-making no further. Since he elected