’Why do you not produce him, then? Do you not know that he is cried for high and low? that he is wanted to complete his contract with the armourer’s drab? It is an ill thing to cross, this present ecstasy of conversion. We are all Bernardines now—lunatics—latter-day Cistercians—raging neophytes of love.’ ’While the ecstasy lasts,’ he murmured, unruffled. ’Ah!’ she cried violently, ’yet may it last your time. Fanaticism is no respecter of rank or service. Standest thou so well with Bona? She would have racked the racker himself in the first fury of her contrition—torn confession from Jacopo’s sullen throat with iron hooks, had not her saint rebuked her. Tassino had been last seen by him in the man’s company, but, when they went to look for him, he was gone. When or whither, the fellow swore he knew not. It was like enough, thou being the lure. Will you not produce him now, and save your peace?’ Ludovico, regarding her vehemence from under half-closed lids, exhibited not the slightest tremor. ’Madonna,’ he said, ’thy mourning beauty becometh thee like Cassandra’s. Hast thou, too, so angered Apollo with thy continence as to make him nullify in thee his own gift of prophecy? Alas, that lips so moving must be so discounted in their warnings!’ She drew back, chilled and baffled. ’Thou wilt not?’ she muttered. ’Well, then, thou wilt not. Take thou thine own course; I may not know thy purpose.’ For a moment the cold of him deepened to deadliness, and his voice to an iron hardness:— ’Nor any like thee—self-seekers—dominated by some single lust. _My_ purpose is a labyrinth of Cnossus. Beware, rash fools, who would seek to unravel it!’ Her lips were a little parted; the fine wings of her nostrils quivered. For all her bravery she felt her heart constricting as in the frost of some terror which she could neither gauge nor compass. But, in the very instant of her fear, Ludovico was his own bland self again. ’Tools, tools!’ he said smiling—’for the eyes, the ears, the lips. I shall take up this one when I need it, not before. Meanwhile it lies ready to my hand.’ ’I do not doubt thy cunning,’ she said faintly. ’What then, Madonna?’ he asked. She struggled with herself, swallowing with difficulty. ’Its adequacy for its purpose—that is all.’ ’What purpose?’ She looked up, and dared him:— ’To destroy the Duchess.’ He laughed out, tolerantly. ’Intuition! Intuition! O thou self-wounding impulse! To destroy the Duchess? Well! What is thy ring for? To destroy Monna Beatrice, belike. And Monna Beatrice had her instrument too, they will say afterwards—a blunt, coarse blade, but hers, hers only—as she thought. Yet, it seems, one Ludovic used something of him, this Narcisso, also—played him for his ends—marked him down, even, for landlord to a fribble called Tassino. What, Carissima! He hath not told thee so much?’ She shook her head dully.