The Lady Duessa was not a woman who could trail tamely in anterooms. A restless temper chafed her pride that evening, and kept her footing the polished floor like a love-lorn nun treading a cloister. The casements were open to the garden, and the multitudinous sounds of the city flooded in--the thunder of the tumbrils in the narrow streets, the distant blare of trumpets from the castle, the clangour of the cathedral bells. A solitary figure companioned the Lady Duessa in the anteroom, cloaked and masked as was the dame herself. It was Balthasar the Dominican, who followed her now in secular habit, having forsworn his black mantle and taken refuge in her service. From time to time the two spoke together in whispering undertones; more than once their lips touched. The Lady Duessa turned and stood by a casement with her large white hands on the sill. She appeared to grow more restive as the minutes passed, as though the antique clock on the mantle clicked its tongue at her each gibing second. "This is insolence," she said anon, "holding us idling here like ragged clients." Balthasar joined her, soft-footed and debonair, his black eyes shining behind his mask. "Peter kept Paul before the gate of heaven," quoth he, with a curl of the lip. "Sforza is a meddler in many matters, a god-busied Mercury. As for me, I am content." Their hands touched, and intertwined with a quick straining of the fingers. "Pah," said the woman with a shiver, "this room is like a funeral litter; it chills my marrow." Balthasar sniggered. "See, the sky burns," he said; "yon garden is packed with colour. We could play a love chase amid those dark hedges of yew." She pressed her flank to his; her eyes glittered like amethysts; her breath hastened. "My mouth, man." She pouted out her full red lips to his; suffered his arms to possess her; they kissed often, and were out of breath. A door creaked. The two started asunder in the shadows with an impatient stare into each other’s eyes. Sforza the Gonfaloniere stood on the threshold, clad plainly in a suit of black velvet, with a sword buckled at his side. He bowed over Duessa’s hand, kissed her finger tips, excusing himself the while for the delay. He was very suave, very facile, as was his wont. The Lady Duessa took his excuses with good grace, remembering their compact, and the common purpose of their ambitions. "Gonfaloniere, we wait our initiation." Sforza’s eyes were fixed on Balthasar with a keen and ironical glitter. "Very good, madame." "Remember; Lord Flavian’s head, that is to be my guerdon." "Madame, we will remember it. And this gentleman?" "Is the friend of whom I spoke." "A most loyal friend, methinks?" "True." The Gonfaloniere coughed behind his fingers, and spoke in his half-husky tenor. "You are ready to risk everything?" Duessa reassured him.