"Respect me in the depths of your heart," she replied, "and do not approach me with those bold eyes and that self-satisfied smile, which are an insult to me." Seeing her cold and lofty bearing, the Piccinino was angry; but he knew that anger is an unwise counsellor. He desired to please her, and he controlled his temper. "You do not understand me," he said, leading her back to her chair and sitting down beside her. "Oh! no, you fail utterly to understand a heart like mine! You are too much the woman of the world, too politic, and I am too ingenuous, too rough, too uncivilized! You are afraid of wild outbreaks on my part, because you see that I love you madly; but you are not afraid of causing me pain, because you have no conception of the pain your indifference may cause me. You think that a mountaineer of Ætna, a brigand and adventurer, can know only sensual transports; and when I ask you for your heart, you think that you have to defend your person. If I were a duke or marquis, you would listen to me without alarm, you would console me for my grief; and, pointing out to me that your love was out of the question, you would offer me your friendship. And I should be gentle, patient, prostrate at your feet in melancholy and affectionate gratitude. It is because I am of the common people, a peasant, that you deny me even your sympathy! Your pride takes fright because you think that I demand something as a right acquired by my services, and you continue to throw my services at my head as if I relied upon them as entitling me to a recompense from you, as if I remembered them when I am looking at you and talking with you! Alas! I do not know how to express myself; I simply say what I think, without torturing my mind to find a way to convince you of it without saying it. I know nothing of the art of your flatterers; I am no more a courtier of beauty than of power, and the curse that rests upon my life makes it impossible for me to play the attendant cavalier like the Marquis della Serra. I have but an hour at night to come, at the risk of my life, to tell you that I am your slave, and you answer that you do not choose to be my sovereign, but my debtor, my customer, who will pay me handsomely! Fie, fie, signora! you place an ice-cold hand upon a burning heart!" "If you have in your mind nothing more than friendship," said Agatha, "if you really aspire to be one of my friends simply, I will promise you that that may come about----"