And she looked him through and through with a profound gaze, wherein she was so happily inspired by the superior sagacity of the courageous woman, that the Piccinino felt its influence and found that respect and awe were mingled with his passion.--"Ah! you romantic woman," he thought, "you have not outgrown the belief that a bandit chief must be a stage hero or a chevalier of the Middle Ages! And here am I compelled to play that part for your pleasure! Very well, I will play it. Nothing is difficult to him who has read much and reasoned much.--Indeed, why should I not be a hero in good earnest?" he said to himself, as he walked silently beside that trembling woman whom he believed to be so trustful and confiding, pressing her arm to his side with his own trembling arm. "If I have not deigned to be one hitherto, it is simply because the opportunity has never offered, and my essays at grandeur would have been absurd. With such a woman as this, the game is well worth the candle, and I cannot believe that it is difficult to be sublime when the reward is destined to be so sweet. It is an undertaking founded upon a selfish motive more elevated, but no less substantial or less logical than others." Before assuming definitively the attitude of the princess's true knight, he determined to do away with a lingering remnant of distrust, and he was almost ingenuous in seeking to cure himself of it. "The only weakness of which I am conscious," he said, "is the dread of playing a ridiculous rôle. Ninfo wished me to play an infamous one, he shall be punished for it; but if your highness really loves that young man--why, that young man also will have reason to regret having deceived me!" "How am I to understand you?" rejoined Agatha, leading him into the ray of light which the chandelier in her boudoir cast into the garden; "I do really love Michelangelo, Pier-Angelo, and Fra Angelo, as devoted friends and estimable men. To rescue them from the enmity of a villain I would give all the money that anyone might ask. But look at me, captain, and look at that young man musing yonder behind that window. Do you consider that there can possibly exist a bond based upon impure passion between two persons of our respective ages and conditions? You do not know my character. Nobody has ever understood it. Will you be the first one to do it justice? I wish it might be so, for I care very much for your esteem, and I should think that I was wholly undeserving of it if I entertained for that child sentiments which I feared to allow you to detect." As she spoke, Agatha, who had dropped the bandit's arm, took it again to return to the boudoir; and he was so grateful to her for that mark of trustful friendship, of which she desired Michel and the marquis to be witnesses, that he felt intoxicated and, as it were, beside himself with joy. XXVIII JEALOUSY