He clacked his tongue to his palate--that gross and forcible rogue; he looked all about him with his arms spread abroad, as if he were scouring the air to find Virginia. "She's off," he said, "she's off, that's plain. Bolted like a coney to the hills. Now, who's our man?" I struck my breast. "It is I, Fra Palamone. I am her man." He inspected me for half a moment, as if to judge of the possibility; but took no further notice of me. He walked to the window and looked out--up and down the street. "Clean heels," says he, "and she was within reach of my hand." "What!" I cried. "It was she who----" I did not finish but rushed at the door. Belviso, divining my insane purpose, caught me by the coat. "Stay, Don Francis--let any one go but you." Seeing that I paused irresolute, he went on to urge me by all that I held dear to do nothing so foolish. "Do you suppose," he said, "that YOU will find her--knowing nothing of Arezzo--and she knowing all? Do you think her so light, that, having borne the first sight of you already without faltering, she will fall to you at the second? You have taught me wiselier about her out of your own mouth. Let us question the friar." He turned to Palamone, who had his mouth open and was scratching in his beard. The frate said that Virginia herself had delivered the letter into his hands as he stood taking the air at the inn door. He scoffed at the notion that he could be mistaken; had he not nearly lost his life for her already? He described her in terms too luscious to be palatable--a fine and full wench, he called her, bare-headed, bare-necked, with the breasts of Hebe. "And," says he, "Don Francis, you may call her your wife or by what other pleasant phrase you please, but though I'd allow you, to do you pleasure, that that were what she ought to be--wife, at least, to somebody--saving your respect, she's no wife at all. There's not a wedded woman in all Italy would go abroad with a bare bosom--you may take the word of an expert for that. She's tricked you, sir,--or you have tricked her. She has had what she has had without responsibility-- and now she's away; and if I may be allowed the remark, I should say you were well rid of her. An excellent dinner awaits you here--more than enough for one, a bare pittance for two; a courteous banker awaits you in Florence. Old Palamone will scratch his eyes out to save you. After dinner, sir, half of Arezzo--" I said, "Palamone, I lay this command upon you, since you profess yourself my friend. Find me Virginia, wheresoever she may be. I will give you a thousand guineas. Without her you have not one farthing of mine." He seized my hands. "A thousand devils would not send me faster-- consider her in your arms." He went gaily out of my presence with a song on his lips. I heard him singing it lustily down the street of the town, and saw no more of him for some days.