ully. Then he said, slowly: "I will
tell you a tale I heard yesterday. Some while ago our bull-headed
Simone, being with Vittoria at supper at her house, and as drunk as is
his custom at the tail of the day, dozed on a sofa while the company
began to talk of fair women."

I was horrified at the ill-manners of the hog, though it all seemed of a
piece with his habitual hoggishness. "One should never be too drunk," I
averred, "to talk on that illuminating theme."

Now Guido was fretted at my interruption, and he showed it with a frown
and a silencing gesture of his hand. "Peace, Lappo, peace!" he cried;
"this is my story. Some praised this lady, some praised that, all, as
was due to their guesthood, giving the palm to Vittoria, till some one
said there lived a lady at Fiesole that was lovelier than a dream."

"Who was this nonesuch?" I asked, all agog over any word of loveliness.

Guido chastened my impatience with a grave glance. "I come to that," he
continued. "She was named Beatrice, daughter of Folco Portinari, and he
that praised her averred that whoso might wed her would be the happiest
of mortals."

Now, though the air was warm, I shivered at his words, as if it had
suddenly turned cold, for, indeed, I was never a marrying man, and my
pleasantest memories of women are not memories of any wife of mine.
"Marriage--and happiness?" I said, questioning and grinning. "I am not
of his mind."

Guido looked at me with a good-humored smile, as one that was prepared
to bear with my interruptions. "Nor he of yours," he answered. "Now, as
they talked thus, our Simone stirred in his stupor, and swore that if
this were true he would marry the maiden. Vittoria laughed, and her
laughter so teased the ruffian that he swore a great oath he would take
any wager he would wed this exquisite maiden."

"Who took him?" I asked. The tale promised to be interesting, and
spurred my curiosity.

Guido went on with his narrative. "No man. Simone's luck is proverbial
as his enmity deadly. But Vittoria grinned at him, swearing no such maid
would marry him, and at last so goaded him that he defied her to a
wager. Then she dared him to this--staking her great emerald, in a ring
that the French prince gave her, on the terms that if he failed to gain
the daughter of Folco Portinari he was in all honor and solemnity to
marry her, Vittoria."

I remember as well as if it were yesterday my amazement when I heard
this story, and am inclined now t