'Yet of all the enterprises to which I have set these rude, soldier hands, none has so warmed me as this, for none has been worthier a man's endeavour. It will be a glorious day for me when we set you in your palace at Casale. A glorious day, and yet a bitter.' 'A bitter?' Her great dark eyes turned on him in question. His countenance clouded, his own glance fell away. 'Will it not be bitter for me to know this service is at an end; to know that I must go my ways; resume a mercenary's life, and do for hire that which I now do out of ... enthusiasm and love?' She shifted her own glance, embarrassed a little. 'Surely you do yourself less than justice. There is great honour and fame in store for you, my lord.' 'Honour and fame!' He laughed. 'I would gladly leave those to tricksters like Bellarion, who rise to them so easily because no scruples ever deter them. Honour and fame! Let who will have those, so that I may serve where my heart bids me.' Boldly now his hand sought hers. She let it lie in his. Above those pensive, mysterious eyes her line brows were knit. 'Aye,' she breathed, 'that is the great service of life! That is the only worthy service--as the heart bids.' His second hand came to recruit the first. Lying almost at her feet, he swung round on his side upon the green earth, looking up at her in a sort of ecstasy. 'You think that, too! You help me to self-contempt, madonna.' 'To self-contempt? It is the only contempt that you will ever know. But why should you know that?' 'Because all my life, until this moment, I have served for hire. Because, if this adventure had not come to me by God's grace, in such worthless endeavours would my life continue. Now--now that I know the opinion in which you must hold such service--it is over and done for me. When I shall have served you to your goal, I shall have performed my last.' There fell a long pause between them. At last: 'When my brother is crowned in Casale, he will need a servant such as you, Messer Carmagnola.' 'Aye, but shall you, madonna? Shall you?' She looked at him wistfully, smiling a little. He was very handsome, very splendid and very brave, a knight to win a lady's trust, and she was a very lonely, friendless lady in sore need of a stout arm and a gallant heart to help her through the trials of this life. The tapering fingers of her disengaged hand descended gently upon his golden head. 'Shall I not?' she asked with a little tremulous laugh. 'Shall I not?' 'Why, then, madonna, if you will accept my service, it shall be yours for as long as I endure. It shall never be another's. Valeria! My Valeria!' That hand upon his head, overheating its very indifferent contents, drove him now to an excessive precipitancy. He carried the hand he held almost fiercely to his lips. It was withdrawn, gently but firmly as was its fellow. His kiss and the bold use of her name scared her a little. 'Carmagnola, my friend ...' 'Your friend, and more than your friend, madonna.'