nzonetta with an air
As if he owned the villa. Why, the fop!
He might have doffed his bonnet as he passed.
I'll teach him better if he comes again.
What does he at the villa? O! perchance
He comes in the evening when his master's out,
To lisp soft romance in the ready ear
Of Beatrice's dressing-maid; but then
She has one lover. Now I think she's two:
This gaudy popinjay would make the third,
And that's too many for an honest girl!
I'll ask the Countess--no, I'll not do that;
She'd laugh at me; and vow by the Madonna
This varlet was some noble in disguise,
Seeking her favor. Then I'd let the light
Of heaven through his doublet--I would--yes,
That is, I would, were I a jealous man:
But then I'm not.

When he comes out again
I'll stop him, question him, and know the truth.
I cannot sit in the garden of a night
But he glides by me in his jaunty dress,
Like a fantastic phantom!--never looks
To the right nor left, but passes gayly on,
As if I were a statue. Soft, he comes!
I'll make him speak, or kill him; then, indeed,
It were unreasonable to ask it. Soh!
I'll speak him gently at the first, and then--

_The_ PAGE _enters by a gate in the villa-garden, and walks past the_
COUNT.

Ho! pretty page, who owns you?

PAGE. No one now.
Once Signor Juan, but I am his no more.

LARA. What, then, you stole from him?

PAGE. O! no, sir, no.
He had so many intrigues on his hands,
There was no sleep for me nor night nor day.
Such carrying of love-favors and pink notes!
He's gone abroad now, to break other hearts
And so I left him.

LARA. A frank knave.

PAGE. To-night
I've done his latest bidding--

LARA. As you should--

PAGE. A duty wed with pleasure--'twas to take
A message to a countess all forlorn,
In yonder villa.

LARA. [_aside_]. Why! that villa's mine!
A message to a countess all forlor