Dante saluted her. "I thank you," he said, in a dull, tired voice.

Then Madonna Vittoria went her way over the bridge with her people after
her, and when she was gone I made bold to go up to where Dante stood
thoughtful, and clapped him on the back in very hearty commendation of
his courage and daring. "You have bubbled Simone well," I said,
joyously.

But, to my surprise, Dante turned to me with a face that was not at all
joyous. "I think he had the best of me in the end," he said, sadly. And
as he spoke he hung his head for all the world like a schoolboy that had
been reproved before his class.

Messer Guido, that was as tender to melancholy as a gentlewoman, caught
him by the hand. "Are you teased by that fellow's taunt?" he asked.

Dante sighed, as he answered: "To the quick of my heart. Will you leave
me, friends, to my thoughts?"

VI

LOVER AND LASS

I sighed in my turn to see him so perverse who had been so triumphant.
"He is as humorous as a chameleon," I protested. Then Guido and I took
Dante by the arms to lead him away, I applauding him for his cunning,
and Guido gently reproving him for his foolhardiness in getting into a
quarrel with such a man of might as Messer Simone--had got him and us
some few yards from the scene of the scuffle when Dante suddenly came to
a halt and would budge no farther. When we asked him what ailed him, he
told us that he had left his book behind him, the book that he had been
so deep in a little while ago; and for all we could say to him, he would
not be prevailed upon, but must needs return for his precious love-tale.
So he quitted us and returned on his steps, and Guido and I looked at
each other in some amusement, thinking what a strange fellow our Dante
was, that could play scholar and lover and soldier in so many breaths,
and could show so much care for some pages of written parchment. Then
Guido would have me go with him, but I was of a mind to see what Dante
would do next, and was fain to watch him. Guido disapproved of this, and
he would not share in it, saying that it was not for us to dog the heels
of a friend.

Guido went his way without me, for it seemed to me less scrupulous and
seeking only to be amused that one who had done so much in a short time
might well be counted upon to do more. I hid in the arcade, and I saw
how Dante went straight to the seat where he had left his book, and
found it still lying there, and took it up and thrust it into