’Nay, but by adoption,’ stammered the other abashed. ’Her assumption of the name should suffice to spare her. O, thou pagan irreclaimable—right offspring of Vesta and the incestuous Saturn! Is this my ultimate profit of thee? Go hide thy face from innocence.’ Lanti, thus bullied, turned dogged. ’I will hide nothing. Abuse my candour; spit on my love if thou wilt, it will endure for its own sake,’ and he flung away in a rage. But he had better have deputed the Fool to a task needing diplomacy. Cicada laughed over his grievance when it was exploded upon him. ’Shouldst have warned Bona herself, rather,’ he said. ’How!’ growled the other: ’and been cashiered, or worse, for my pains?’ ’Not while her lost ring stands against her; and thou, her private agent for its recovery.’ ’True; from the mud.’ ’Well, if thou think’st so.’ ’Dost thou not?’ ’Ay; for as mud is mud, Narcisso is Narcisso.’ ’Narcisso!’ He roared, and stared. ’Has _he_ got it?’ ’I do not say so.’ ’I will go carve the truth out of him.’ ’Or Monna Beatrice.’ ’What!’ The great creature fairly gasped; then muttered, in a strangled voice: ’Why should she want it? What profit to her?’ ’What, indeed?’ whined the Fool. ’She fancies Messer Bembo too well to wish to injure him, or through him, Bona—does she not?’ Carlo’s brow slowly blackened. ’I will go to her,’ he said suddenly. The Fool leapt to bar his way. ’You would do a foolish thing,’ he said—’with deference, always with deference, Messer. This is my part. Leave it to me.’ Carlo choked, and stood breathing. ’Why,’ said the Fool, ’these are the days of circumspection. God, says Propriety, made out hands and faces, and whatever else that is not visible was the devil’s work. You would be shown, by Monna Beatrice, for all her self-acknowledged parts, just clean hands and a smiling face. She conforms to fashion. For the rest, the devil will attend to his own secrets.’ The other groaned:— ’I would I could fathom thee. I would I had the ring.’ ’I would thou hadst,’ answered Cicada. ’’Twould be a good ring to set in our Duchess’s little nose, to persuade her from routling in consecrated ground: a juster weapon in thy hands than in some other’s. Well, be patient; I may obtain it for thee yet.’