[_Rises and turns._ My good old nurse, I had forgotten thou wast sitting there. ELISABETTA. Ay, and forgotten thy foster-brother too. COUNT. Bird-babble for my falcon! Let it pass. What art thou doing there? ELISABETTA. Darning, your lordship. We cannot flaunt it in new feathers now: Nay, if we _will_ buy diamond necklaces To please our lady, we must darn, my lord. This old thing here (_points to necklace round her neck_), they are but blue beads—my Piero, God rest his honest soul, he bought ’em for me, Ay, but he knew I meant to marry him. How couldst thou do it, my son? How couldst thou do it? COUNT. She saw it at a dance, upon a neck Less lovely than her own, and long’d for it. ELISABETTA. She told thee as much? COUNT. No, no—a friend of hers. ELISABETTA. Shame on her that she took it at thy hands, She rich enough to have bought it for herself! COUNT. She would have robb’d me then of a great pleasure. ELISABETTA. But hath she yet return’d thy love? COUNT. Not yet! ELISABETTA. She should return thy necklace then. COUNT. Ay, if She knew the giver; but I bound the seller To silence, and I left it privily At Florence, in her palace. ELISABETTA. And sold thine own To buy it for her. She not know? She knows There’s none such other—— COUNT. Madman anywhere. Speak freely, tho’ to call a madman mad Will hardly help to make him sane again. _Enter FILIPPO._ FILIPPO. Ah, the women, the women! Ah, Monna Giovanna, you here again! you that have the face of an angel and the heart of a—that’s too positive! You that have a score of lovers and have not a heart for any of them—that’s positive-negative: you that have _not_ the head of a toad, and _not_ a heart like the jewel in it—that’s too negative; you that have a cheek like a peach and a heart like the stone in it—that’s positive again—that’s better! ELISABETTA. Sh—sh—Filippo! FILIPPO (_turns half round_). Here has our master been a-glorifying and a-velveting and a-silking himself, and a-peacocking and a-spreading to catch her eye for a dozen year, till he hasn’t an eye left in his own tail to flourish among the peahens, and all along o’ you, Monna Giovanna, all along o’ you! ELISABETTA. Sh—sh—Filippo! Can’t you hear that you are saying behind his back what you see you are saying afore his face? COUNT. Let him—he never spares me to my face! FILIPPO.