But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my cousin's sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him.

"Let be," he said. And looked up the board at Cavalcanti. "It is for my Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his board."

Cavalcanti's face was set and rigid. "You place a heavy burden on my shoulders," said he, "when your excellency, my guest, appeals to me against another guest of mine--against one who is all but friendless and the son of my own best friend."

"And my worst enemy," cried Pier Luigi hotly.

"That is your excellency's own concern, not mine," said Cavalcanti coldly. "But since you appeal to me I will say that Messer d'Anguissola's words were ill-judged in such a season. Yet in justice I must add that it is not the way of youth to weigh its words too carefully; and you gave him provocation. When a man--be he never so high--permits himself to taunt another, he would do well to see that he is not himself vulnerable to taunts."

Farnese rose with a horrible oath, and every one of his gentlemen with him.

"My lord," he said, "this is to take sides against me; to endorse the affront."

"Then you mistake my intention," rejoined Cavalcanti, with an icy dignity. "You appeal to me for judgment. And between guests I must hold the scales dead-level, with no thought for the rank of either. Of your chivalry, my lord Duke, you must perceive that I could not do else."

It was the simplest way in which he could have told Farnese that he cared nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency that Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of Parma might ruffle it unchecked.

Messer Pier Luigi hesitated, entirely out of countenance. Then his eyes turned to Bianca, and his expression softened.

"What says Madonna Bianca?" he inquired, his manner rea.s.suming some measure of its courtliness. "Is her judgment as unmercifully level?"

She looked up, startled, and laughed a little excitedly, touched by the tenseness of a situation which she did not understand.

"What say I?" quoth she. "Why, that here is a deal of pother about some foolish words."

"And there," cried Pier Luigi, "spoke, I think, not only beauty but wisdom--Minerva's utterances from the lips of Diana!"

In glad relief the company echoed his forced laugh, and all sat down again, the incident at an end, and my contempt of the Duke increased to see him permit such a matter to be so lightly ended.

But that night, when I had retired to my chamber, I was visited by Cavalcanti. He was very grave.

"Agostino," he said, "let me implore you to be circ.u.mspect, to keep a curb upon your bitter tongue. Be patient, boy, as I am--and I have more to endure."

"I marvel, sir, that you endure it," answered I, for my mood was petulant.

"You will marvel less when you are come to my years--if, indeed, you come to them. For if you pursue this course, and strike back when such men as Pier Luigi tap you, you will not be likely to see old age. Body of Satan! I would that Galeotto were here! If aught should happen to you..." He checked, and set a hand upon my shoulder.

"For your father's sake I love you, Agostino, and I speak as one who loves you."

"I know, I know!" I cried, seizing his hand in a sudden penitence. "I am an ingrate and a fool. And you upheld me n.o.bly at table. Sir, I swear that I will not submit you to so much concern again."

He patted my shoulder in a very friendly fashion, and his kindly eyes smiled upon me. "If you but promise that--for your own sake, Agostino--we need say no more. G.o.d send this papal by-blow takes his departure soon, for he is as unwelcome here as he is unbidden."

"The foul toad!" said I. "To see him daily, hourly bending over Monna Bianca, whispering and ogling--ugh!"

"It offends you, eh? And for that I love you! There. Be circ.u.mspect and patient, and all will be well. Put your faith in Galeotto, and endure insults which you may depend upon him to avenge when the hour strikes."

Upon that he left me, and he left me with a certain comfort. And in the days that followed, I acted upon his injunction, though, truth to tell, there was little provocation to do otherwise. The Duke ignored me, and all the gentlemen of his following did the like, including Cosimo. And meanwhile they revelled at Pagliano and made free with the hospitality to which they had not been bidden.

Thus sped another week in which I had not the courage again to approach Bianca after what had pa.s.sed between us at our single interview. Nor for that matter was I afforded the opportunity. The Duke and Cosimo were ever at her side, and yet it almost seemed as if the Duke had given place to his captain, for Cosimo's was the greater a.s.siduity now.

The days were spent at bowls or pallone within the castle, or upon hawking-parties or hunting-parties when presently the Duke's health was sufficiently improved to enable him to sit his horse; and at night there was feasting which Cavalcanti must provide, and on some evenings we danced, though that was a diversion in which I took no part, having neither the will nor the art.

One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice behind me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and had come to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided her, neither addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me since the first brazen speech on her arrival.

"That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have caught the Duke in her net of innocence," said she.

I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling face she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon her face that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with Fifanti.

"You are greatly daring," said I.

"To take in vain the name of her white innocence?" she answered, smiling superciliously. And then she grew more serious. "Look, Agostino, we were friends once. I would be your friend now."

"It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression."

"Ha! We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the ways of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised our eyes to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!" She spoke sneeringly.

"What is that to you?" I asked.

"Nothing," she answered frankly. "But that another may have raised his eyes to her is something. I am honest with you. If this child is aught to you, and you would not lose her, you would do well to guard her more closely than you are wont. A word in season. That is all my message."

"Stay!" I begged her now, for already she was gliding away through the shadows of the gallery.

She laughed over her shoulder at me--the very incarnation of effrontery and insolence.

"Have I moved you into sensibility?" quoth she. "Will you condescend to questions with one whom you despise?--as, indeed," she added with a stinging scorn, "you have every right to do."

"Tell me more precisely what you mean," I begged her, for her words had moved me fearfully.

"Gesu!" she exclaimed. "Can I be more precise? Must I add counsels?

Why, then, I counsel that a change of air might benefit Madonna Bianca's health, and that if my Lord of Pagliano is wise, he will send her into retreat in some convent until the Duke's visit here is at an end. And I can promise you that in that case it will be the sooner ended. Now, I think that even a saint should understand me."

With that last gibe she moved resolutely on and left me.

Of the gibe I took little heed. What imported was her warning. And I did not doubt that she had good cause to warn me. I remembered with a shudder her old-time habit of listening at doors. It was very probable that in like manner had she now gathered information that ent.i.tled her to give me such advice.

It was incredible. And yet I knew that it was true, and I cursed my blindness and Cavalcanti's. What precisely Farnese's designs might be I could not conceive. It was hard to think that he should dare so much as Giuliana more than hinted. It may be that, after all, there was no more than just the danger of it, and that her own base interests urged her to do what she could to avert it.

In any case, her advice was sound; and perhaps, as she said, the removal of Bianca quietly might be the means of helping Pier Luigi's unwelcome visit to an end.

Indeed, it was so. It was Bianca who held him at Pagliano, as the blindest idiot should have perceived.

That very night I would seek out Cavalcanti ere I retired to sleep.

CHAPTER VI. THE TALONS OF THE HOLY OFFICE