He secured the stout shutters at the windows with heavy padlocked iron bars, and left the room with Mila, locking the door and putting the key in his pocket. XXXIX AN IDYLL The Piccinino returned with his young companion to the garden, and, having suddenly become pensive, sat down upon a bench and apparently forgot her presence. And yet he was thinking of her, and this is what he was saying to himself: "Would it not be an idiotic performance to allow this lovely creature to go hence as calm and serene as she came? Yes, it would be an idiotic performance for a man who was resolved upon her ruin; but I simply wished to test the power of my glance and my voice to lure her into my cage, like a beautiful bird whom one likes to examine close at hand, and to whom one then restores its liberty, because one does not wish it to die. There is always a touch of hatred in the violent desires a woman arouses in us."--The Piccinino is still musing and meditating upon his impressions.--"For victory, in such cases, is a matter of pride, and it is impossible to fight, even in play, without a little temper.--But there is no more of hatred than of anger or desire in the feeling this child arouses in me. It does not even occur to her to be coquettish with me. She is not afraid of me; she looks me in the face without blushing; she is not agitated in my presence. If I abuse her isolation and her weakness, she will defend herself badly perhaps, but she will go away from here all in tears, and it may be will kill herself--for there are some who kill themselves.--At all events she will detest the thought of me and blush to have belonged to me. Now, a man like myself cannot afford to be despised. Women who do not know him must fear him; they who do know him must esteem him or love him; they who have known him must regret him. To be sure, there is, on the border-line between presumption and violence, an infinite enjoyment, a complete consciousness of victory; but that is so on the border-line only: a hair's-breadth beyond, and it is all bestiality and brutality. The moment that a woman can accuse you of having resorted to force, she resumes her sway, although conquered, and you risk becoming her slave because you have been her master against her will. I have heard that there was something of that sort in my father's life, although Fra Angelo would never tell me anything definite about it. But everybody knows that my father lacked patience and that he drank heavily. Those were the failings of his time. We are more civilized and more adroit to-day. More moral? no, but more refined, and, consequently, more irresistible. Would there be much skill or much merit involved in obtaining from this girl what she has not as yet accorded her lover? She is so trustful that the first half of the road would be easy enough. Indeed, I have already gone halfway. She was fascinated by my air of chivalrous virtue. She came here, she entered my house, she sat by my side.