’Ay, of love. He has made you worldly-wise for a saint. Hast ever before been beyond thy walls?’ ’Of course.’ ’And studied this and that? Experience, methinks is the right nurse for such a creed. What made you accuse me of dishonour?’ ’I did not.’ ’Nay, is that to be a saint?’ ’Whom the shoe fits, let her wear it.’ ’Bernardo! _Where got you the shoe_?’ ’Does it fit, I say?’ ’I fear me ’twas in some bagnio.’ ’Where you had dropped it? For shame!’ A rather long pause. ’I will not be angry—just yet. Where got you the shoe, I say? An eavesdropper is well equipped for a prophet.’ ’I am no eavesdropper.’ ’Who enlightened you?’ ’Your cicisbeo.’ ’Under that title?’ ’Nay; it is not the devil’s policy to call himself devil.’ A shorter pause. ’But you had heard of me?’ ’Nothing escapes the Church’s hearing. Besides, Messer Lanti’s summer lodge is within call, one may say of San Zeno.’ ’You are daring. Dost know in what high favour he stands with the Duke?’ ’Else how could he have compassed Uriah’s dismissal to the wars?’ Silence, and then a sigh. ’Whom do you mean by Uriah?’ ’Thy lord, the Count of Casa Caprona.’ ’He is a soldier, and an old man.’ ’Didst covenant with his age in thy marriage vows?’ ’Bernardino, I am very sleepy.’ ’Sleep, then, and forget thyself, and awake, another.’ She sighed, and put her arms softly about him and her cheek against his shoulder. Messer Lanti, falling back, saw her thus, with closed eyes; and laughed, and then frowned, and cried boisterously— ’Hast converted her, Parablist? Art a saint indeed?’ He spurred forward again, with a discontented look, and madam opened her eyes. ’What gossips are thine old monks, Bernardino; and what hypocrites, denouncing the licence they example!’ ’I know not what you mean.’ ’Are they all saints, then, in San Zeno?’ ’That is for Rome to say. It is a good law which lays down this wine of sanctity to mature. In a hundred years we shall know what stood the test.’ ’Ah me! And I am but seventeen. Will you speak for your Abbot?’ ’Ay, like a dear son.’ ’Is he your father, Bernardo?’ ’Is he not the father of us all?’ ’Maybe. But ’tis of Benjamin I ask. Now, he is a strange father, methinks, to bid his Benjamin, thus apparelled, on a wild goose chase.’ ’He could not discount the voices.’ ’What voices?’ The boy lifted his face and eyes to the heavens, and lowered them again with no answer but a sigh of rapture. ’So? And did the voices bid thee wear a velvet mantlet and roses to thy shoes?’ whispered the girl, with a tiny chuckle. ’They said, "Not in cockle shells, but a plume, goes the Pilgrim of Love,"’ answered Bembo. ’As I am and have been, God finds me fitting in His sight.’ ’And the Father Abbot, I wot?’ ’Yes: "Since," says he, "Christ bequeathed His Kingdom to beauty."’ ’And you have inherited it? I think I will be your subject, Bernardo.’ ’I hope so, Madonna.’