The silence that followed my words was as oppressive as the silence which in Nature preludes thunder. A vivid flame of scarlet had overspread the Duke's countenance. It receded, leaving his cheeks a greenish white, even to the mottling pimples. Abashed, his smouldering eyes fell away before my bold, defiant glance. The fingers of his trembling hand tightened about the slender stem of his Venetian goblet, so that it snapped, and there was a gush of crimson wine upon the snowy napery. His lips were drawn back--like a dog's in the act of snarling--and showed the black stumps of his broken teeth. But he made no sound, uttered no word. It was Cosimo who spoke, half rising as he did so. “This insolence, my lord Duke, must be punished; this insult wiped out. Suffer me...” But Pier Luigi reached forward across Bianca, set a hand upon my cousin's sleeve, and pressed him back into his seat silencing him. “Let be,” he said. And looked up the board at Cavalcanti. “It is for my Lord of Pagliano to say if a guest shall be thus affronted at his board.” Cavalcanti's face was set and rigid. “You place a heavy burden on my shoulders,” said he, “when your excellency, my guest, appeals to me against another guest of mine--against one who is all but friendless and the son of my own best friend.” “And my worst enemy,” cried Pier Luigi hotly. “That is your excellency's own concern, not mine,” said Cavalcanti coldly. “But since you appeal to me I will say that Messer d'Anguissola's words were ill-judged in such a season. Yet in justice I must add that it is not the way of youth to weigh its words too carefully; and you gave him provocation. When a man--be he never so high--permits himself to taunt another, he would do well to see that he is not himself vulnerable to taunts.” Farnese rose with a horrible oath, and every one of his gentlemen with him. “My lord,” he said, “this is to take sides against me; to endorse the affront.” “Then you mistake my intention,” rejoined Cavalcanti, with an icy dignity. “You appeal to me for judgment. And between guests I must hold the scales dead-level, with no thought for the rank of either. Of your chivalry, my lord Duke, you must perceive that I could not do else.” It was the simplest way in which he could have told Farnese that he cared nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency that Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of Parma might ruffle it unchecked. Messer Pier Luigi hesitated, entirely out of countenance. Then his eyes turned to Bianca, and his expression softened. “What says Madonna Bianca?” he inquired, his manner reassuming some measure of its courtliness. “Is her judgment as unmercifully level?” She looked up, startled, and laughed a little excitedly, touched by the tenseness of a situation which she did not understand. “What say I?” quoth she. “Why, that here is a deal of pother about some foolish words.”