Despite Madonna Paola’s dismissal, I remained in Pesaro. Indeed, had I attempted to leave, it is probable that the Lord Filippo would have deterred me, for I was much grown in his esteem since the disclosures that had earned me the disfavour of Madonna. But I had no thought of going. I hoped against hope that anon she might melt to a kinder mood, or else that by yet aiding her, despite herself, to elude the Borgia alliance, I might earn her forgiveness for those matters in which she held that I had so gravely sinned against her. The epithalamium, meanwhile, was forgotten utterly and I spent my days in conceiving wild plans to save her from the Lord Ignacio, only to abandon them when in more sober moments their impracticable quality was borne in upon me. In this fashion some six weeks went by, and during the time she never once addressed me. We saw much during those days of the Governor of Cesena. Indeed his time seemed mainly spent in coming and going ’twixt Cesena and Pesaro, and it needed no keen penetration to discern the attraction that brought him. He was ever all attention to Madonna, and there were times when I feared that perhaps she had been drawn into accepting the aid that once before he had proffered. But these fears were short-lived, for, as time sped, Madonna’s aversion to the man grew plain for all to see. Yet he persisted until the very eve, almost, of her betrothal to Ignacio. One evening in early December I chanced, through the purest accident, to overhear her sharp repulsion of the suit that he had evidently been pressing. “Madonna,” I heard him answer, with a snarl, “I may yet prove to you that you have been unwise so to use Ramiro del’ Orca.” “If you so much as venture to address me again upon the subject,” she returned in the very chilliest accents, “I will lay this matter of your odious suit before your master Cesare Borgia.” They must have caught the sound of my footsteps in the gallery in which they stood, and Ramiro moved away, his purple face pale for once, and his eyes malevolent as Satan’s. I reflected with pleasure that perhaps we had now seen the last of him, and that before that threat of Madonna’s he would see fit to ride home to Cesena and remain there. But I was wrong. With incredible effrontery and daring he lingered. The morrow was a Sunday, and, on the Tuesday or Wednesday following, Cesare Borgia and his cousin Ignacio were expected. Filippo was in the best of moods, and paid more heed to the Governor of Cesena’s presence at Pesaro than he did to mine. It may be that he imagined Ramiro del’ Orca to be acting under Cesare’s instructions. That Sunday night we supped together, and we were all tolerably gay, the topic of our talk being the coming of the bridegroom. Madonna’s was the only downcast face at the board. She was pale and worn, and there were dark circles round her eyes that did much to mar the beauty of her angel face, and inspired me with a deep and sorrowing pity.