He paused, with dilating eyes and parted lips, intoxicated with pride. "This ambition is his madness," thought Giannotto; but he still was silent. "In another thing," continued Visconti, and his voice was changed: he breathed softly, and his eyes sparkled pleasantly. "Last May-day I saw the people in the fields, pulling flowers; I knew they were what poets call happy. Among them were two girls, one dark, one fair, and she with the dark hair had her betrothed beside her. They were happy among the happy, they loved each other--and I rode unseen. The may was thick and white, I watched them through the flowers and vowed: I too will be happy, even as they are happy, though I am Visconti; I will be loved for myself alone; that fair-haired girl shall care for me as her companion for her lover,--life shall give me that as well!" And he rose, triumphant, smiling, resting his hand on the arras that hid the door behind him. The secretary gazed upon him fascinated. Lifting the arras, he paused again, and looked back with a smile that transformed his face. "In that too have I succeeded!" he said melodiously; and, opening the narrow door, he was gone, as always, noiselessly. The secretary shook himself. "Why does he unburden his soul to me?" he murmured. "Does he think, because I sit silent, I have no ears, no memory--that I shall forget? 'In that too have I succeeded!' Aye, thou hast it all thine own way, Visconti, so far." With a slight shrug of the shoulders Giannotto fell to writing. When his pages were finished, he put them into his bag for the Duke to sign, and grumbled at his absence, stayed, but dared not follow. Presently he decided to take his own dismissal. As he rose to go he remembered Valentine Visconti, flying through the garden after her secret visit, and he considered, if she could bribe him to silence heavily enough to make it worth his while to venture an encounter with her. Visconti did not stint his sister for money, and she might pay well. Still, dare he let her know he spied? Then his thoughts went to Isotta d'Este, and he wondered, with some interest, what her fate would be. In open day Isotta d'Este had been captured; all Europe knew she was his prisoner; Tuscany and the Empire already looked with interest on the Duke of Milan's growing power, and that Duke a usurper. Visconti had to step warily. Still busy with his thoughts, the secretary had reached the door, when it opened and the ancient Luisa, Isotta's prison attendant and spy, entered, glancing expectantly around. Giannotto looked at her slowly; he hated her--indeed, he hated most people, but she in particular, for she equaled him in servile cunning and surpassed him in greed. "I would see the Duke," she said, looking at him mistrustfully. "Thou canst not see him," returned the secretary, "for he is not here."