“My lord Magnifico, to spur you on to say something more, I should like to put you a question concerning what you would have the chief business of the Court Lady, and it is this: that I wish to hear how she ought to conduct herself with respect to one detail which seems to me very important; for although the excellent qualities wherewith you have endowed her include genius, wisdom, good sense, ease of bearing, modesty, and so many other virtues, whereby she ought in reason to be able to converse with everyone and on every theme, still I think that more than anything else she needs to know that which belongs to discussions on love. For as every gentle cavalier uses those noble exercises, elegances and fine manners that we have mentioned, as a means to win the favour of women, to this end likewise he employs words; and not only when he is moved by passion, but often also to do honour to the lady with whom he is speaking, since he thinks that to give signs of love for her is a proof that she is worthy of it, and that her beauty and merits are so great that they compel every man to serve her. “Hence I fain would know how this lady ought to converse on such a theme discreetly, and how reply to him who loves her truly, and how to him who makes a false pretence thereof; and whether she ought to feign not to understand, whether to return his love or to refuse, and how conduct herself.” 54.—Then my lord Magnifico said: “It would be needful to teach her first to distinguish those who pretend to love and those who love truly; then, as to returning love or not, I think she ought not to be governed by any others’ wish but her own.” Messer Federico said: “Then teach her what are the surest and safest signs to discern false love from true, and with what proof she ought to be content in order to be sure of the love shown her.” The Magnifico replied, laughing: “I know not, for men to-day are so cunning that they make false pretences without end, and sometimes weep when they have great wish to laugh; hence it were necessary to send them to Isola Ferma under the True Lovers’ Arch.[424] “But to the end that this Lady of mine (of whom it behooves me to take special care, since she is my creation) may not fall into those errours wherein I have seen many others fall, I should tell her not to be quick to believe herself loved, nor act like some who not only do not feign not to understand when court is paid to them even covertly, but at the first word accept all the praise that is given them, or decline it with a certain air that is rather an invitation to love for those with whom they are speaking, than a refusal.