“Gualtiero!” she cried, in her musical native tongue, “Gualtiero! I have missed you so long. Oh! blessed, blessed hour to bring you!” She held both her hands to me, opening her arms wide; but the sight of her, the sound of her voice, had snapped the spell that momentarily bound me. Very deliberately, with studied courtesy I fell on one knee, took her right hand coldly to my lips, and kissed it formally. Then I rose and stood with bowed head, but at safe distance. “You must pardon me, Madonna,” said I, “if this interview slightly overwhelms me; only a very few hours since have I entered Worms, and it was by the merest fortune that I rambled out by the palace and was confronted by Orosi. I consented that he lead me to you, perhaps without considering whether an interview would lead to mutual happiness or the reverse.” She drew back, and the muscles of her neck seemed to twitch. “Your words are cold as your northern wind, Gualtiero, all the spark and fire is gone out of them. Can three years away from Italy change so much? destroy habit, thought, memory? Do you not remember the Corso, and the Vatican gardens, and the boats on the Tiber, and the Carnival, and the fiestas of roses, and--” I folded my arms across my breast. “I forget none of them, Madonna.” “Santo Spirito, and do you never long for them? Are you turned all to ice?” “Not quite,” I replied gently. “Then I,” and her eyes shot fire, “demand in the name of that passion which once you will not deny blazed swift and hot,--what marvel has wrought this change?” “You will never understand, Madonna,” I answered slowly, “not though my speech went far into the night. The North has claimed me; I am of my father’s world and not of my mother’s. The North has claimed me, and the Cause, which is so great.” “The Cause? I cannot understand.” “I said you could not. Once you laughed at us Germans, called us winebibbers and fools; we are stirring now. Once you mocked at our friar Martin Luther; he is giving the Monsignori gloomy evenings now. Great things are coming to pass, and greater things will follow. Here in Worms we may hear words that will be remembered so long as men read books; for the Cause is moving to triumph, and he who aids therein is aiding even God.” “Your words are Italian,” she said, misdoubtingly, “but your thought still is all hid. What is this Cause? explain.” “The Cause is the Word of God as spoken by Luther, and from him caught by the world.” She threw her hands over her head and laughed. The laugh grated. It was scornful and evil. “At last! at last! Well, I could have thought as much. Still bewitched by that babbling demon of an excommunicate friar. My father and I will have to learn how to disenchant you.” “In that case you must prove wiser than Merlin, for I swear to you, never went cavalier more earnestly on his crusade than I on this.”