“That is a matter upon which I will not dispute with a guest,” said Cavalcanti with an urbanity of tone belied by the anger that flashed from his brown eyes. At the time I thought him greatly daring, little dreaming that, forewarned of the Duke's coming, his measures were taken, and that one blast from the silver whistle that hung upon his breast would have produced a tide of men-at-arms that would have engulfed and overwhelmed Messer Pier Luigi and his suite. Farnese dismissed the matter with a casual laugh. And then a lazy, drawling voice--a voice that once had been sweetest music to my ears, but now was loathsome as the croaking of Stygian frogs--addressed me. “Why, here is a great change, sir saint! We had heard you had turned anchorite; and behold you in cloth of gold, shining as you would out-dazzle Phoebus.” I stood palely before her, striving to keep the loathing from my face, and I was conscious that Bianca had suddenly turned and was regarding us with eyes of grave concern. “I like you better for the change,” pursued Giuliana. “And I vow that you have grown at least another inch. Have you no word for me, Agostino?” I was forced to answer her. “I trust that all is well with you, Madonna,” I said. Her lazy smile grew broader, displaying the dazzling whiteness of her strong teeth. “Why, all is very well with me,” said she, and her sidelong glance at the Duke, half mocking, half kindly with an odious kindliness, seemed to give added explanations. That he should have dared bring here this woman whom no doubt he had wrested from his creature Gambara--here into the shrine of my pure and saintly Bianca--was something for which I could have killed him then, for which I hated him far more bitterly than for any of those dark turpitudes that I had heard associated with his odious name. And meanwhile there he stood, that Pope's bastard, leaning over my Bianca, speaking to her, and in his eyes the glow of a dark and unholy fire what time they fed upon her beauty as the slug feeds upon the lily. He seemed to have no thought for any other, nor for the circumstance that he kept us all standing there. “You must come to our Court at Piacenza, Madonna,” I heard him murmuring. “We knew not that so fair a flower was blossoming unseen in this garden of Pagliano. It is not well that such a jewel should be hidden in this grey casket. You were made to queen it in a court, Madonna; and at Piacenza you shall be hailed and honoured as its queen.” And so he rambled on with his rough and trivial flattery, his foully pimpled face within a foot of hers, and she shrinking before him, very white and mute and frightened. Her father looked on with darkling brows, and Giuliana began to gnaw her lip and look less lazy, whilst in the courtly background there was a respectful murmuring babble, supplying a sycophantic chorus to the Duke's detestable adulation.