'There's a deal of shrewdness, lady, to be learned in convents.' And then, whether the beauty and charm of her so wrought upon him as to breed in him the desire to serve her, or whether he merely offered a bargain, a return for value received and to be received, it is probable that he did not know himself. But he made his proposal. 'If you would trust me, madonna, you might even use me, and so repay yourself.' 'Use you?' 'As a messenger. In the place of him whom you expected. That is, if you have messages to send, as I think you should have.' 'You think it?' 'From what you have said.' 'I said so little.' She was clearly suspicious. 'But I inferred so much. Too much, perhaps. Let me expose my reasoning.' The truth is he was a little vain of it. 'You expected a messenger from one Lord Barbaresco. You left the garden-gate ajar to facilitate his entrance when he came, and you were on the watch for him, and alone. Your ladies, one of whom at least is in your confidence, were beguiling the gentlemen and keeping them in the lower garden, whilst you loitered watchful by the hedged enclosure. Hence I argue on your part anxiety and secrecy. You were anxious because no message had come for a fortnight, nor had Messer Giuffredo, the usual messenger been seen. Almost you may have feared that some evil had befallen Messer Giuffredo, if not the Lord Barbaresco, himself. Which shows that the secret practices of which these messages are the subject may themselves be dangerous. Do I read the signs fluently enough?' There was little need for his question. Her face supplied the answer. 'Too fluently, I think. Too fluently for one who is no more than you represent yourself.' 'It is, madonna, that you are not accustomed to the exercise of pure reason. It is rare enough.' 'Pure reason!' Her scorn where his fatuity had expected wonder was like a searing iron. 'And do you know, sir, what pure reason tells me?' 'I can believe anything, madonna,' he said, alluding to the tone she used with him. 'That you were sent to set a trap for me.' He perceived exactly by what steps she had come to that conclusion. He smiled reassuringly, and shook his moist head. 'The reasoning is not pure enough. If I had been so sent, should I have been pursued and hunted? And should I not have come prepared with some trivial message, to assure you that I am the messenger you were so very ready to believe me?' She was convinced. But still she hesitated. 'But why, concluding so much and so accurately, should you offer to serve me?' 'Say from gratitude to one who has saved perhaps my life.' 'But I did so under a misapprehension. That should compel no gratitude.'