'Speak plain, master philosopher. Innuendo is the weapon of Fools, and
wisdom shall prevail in candour. Thou canst not picture to thyself this
evangelised Duke?'
Montano shot a lowering glance at him.
'No, I confess, master Patch,' said he--'unless,' he added grinning, 'by
Nero's road.'
'Two whispers do not make one outspokenness,' answered the Fool. 'Hast
hinted Nero once, and once again, and still we lack the application.
Nero was driven to the road, quotha; well, by whom?--one Galba, an my
learning's not a'rust. What then? Is Galba going to drive Galeazzo?'
'Nay, Love, dear Cicca,' put in Bernardo, but half hearing and half
understanding.
'Love!' cried the Fool. 'Thou hast hit it. Hear wisdom from the mouths
of babes. Love in the hands of rascals--a tool, a catspaw, to pull them
their chestnuts from the fire, and then be cast burnt aside.'
He addressed himself, with infinite irony, to Montano.
'Good master philosopher,' said he, 'there is one fable for you: listen
while I relate another. A certain rogue was stripped and beaten by a
greater, who going on his way, there came a stranger, a mere child, and
marked the fellow groaning. "Poor soul!" quoth he in pity; and knelt
and bound his hurts and gave him wine, and by kind arts restored him.
When shortly the aggressor returning and whistling by that place, his
erst-victim, stung to revenge, yet having no weapon left him, did leap
and incontinent seize up by his heels the ministering angel, and using
his body for flail, knock down his enemy with him, killing both
together. Which having done, and picked their pockets, on his way goes
he rejoicing, "Now do I succeed to mine enemy's purse and roguery!"'
He ended. Montano, glancing stealthily at Bernardo, wriggled and
tittered uneasily.
'Patch hath spoken,' he said; 'great is Patch!'
'I have spoken,' quoth the Fool. 'Dost gather the moral?'
'Not I, indeed.'
'Why, sir, 'tis of roguery making himself master of Love's estate; and
yet that is not the full moral neither. For I mind me of a correction;
how, before the blow was struck, Folly stepped between, and snatched
Love from such a fate, and left the rogues to their conclusions.'
'Well, Folly and Love were well mated. Have you done? I am going to my
books.'
He yawned, and stretched himself, and rose.
'I will show you to the door, says Folly,' chirped Cicada, and skipped
about the other as he went, with a mincing affectation of ceremonial.
But when they were got out of immediate sight and hearing of Bernardo
into the front chamber, like a wolf the Fool snapped upon the
philosopher, and pinned him into a corner.
'Understood'st my fable well enough,' he grated, in a rapid whisper.
'What! I have waited this opportunity a day or two. Now the stopper is
out, let us flow.'
Montano, taken by surprise, was seized with a tremor of irresolution.
He returned the Fool's gaze with a frown uncertain, sullen, eager all in
one.
'Flow, then,' he muttered, after a little.
'I flow,' went on the other, 'oil and verjuice combined. Imprimis, think
not that because I read I would betray thee. Ay, ay--no need to start,
sir. Thou shalt not quit playing with thy doll for me; nay, nor
dressing and goring it, if thou wilt, with triangles of steel. O, I
saw!--the face and the slashes in it, too. I have not since been so
ill, like him there, as to read a phantasy out of fact. What then?
Would ye silence me?'
'Go on,' whispered Montano hoarsely.
'Well, I flow,' returned the Fool. 'Did I not tell thee candour was the
best part of wisdom? Learn by it, then. I have marked thee of late; O,
trust me, I have marked thee, thy hints and insinuations. And hereby by
folly I swear, could once I think my master wax to such impressions, I
would kill him where he stands, and damn my soul to send his uncorrupt
to heaven. You sneer? Sneer on. Why, I could have laughed just now to
see you, tortuous, sound his sweet candid shallows, where every pebble's
plain. Do your own work, I'll not speak or care. You shall not have
him to it, that's all. Sooner shall the heavens fall, than he be led by
you to poison Galeazzo. Is that plain?'
It was so plain, that the philosopher gasped vainly for a retort.
'Who--who spoke of poison?' he stammered. 'Not I. Dear Messer Fool,
you wrong me. This boy--the protege of della Grande--mine old friend--I
would not so misuse him. Why, he succoured me--an ill requital. If I
sounded him, 'twas in self-justification only. We seek the same end by
different roads--the ancient Gods restored--the return to Nature. Is it
not so? Christ or Hyperion--I will not quarrel with the terms.
"Knowledge," saith he, "is the fool that left his Eden." Well, he harks
back, and so do I.'
'No further, thou, than to Rome and Regillus; but he to Paradise. Halt
him not, I say. He shall not be thy catspaw. On these terms only is my
silence bought.'
'Then is it bought. Why, Fool, I could think thee a fool indeed. He
hath forsworn the court: how could we think to employ him there?'
'You know, as I know, sir, that this secession is a parenthesis, no
more. He came to cure the State--not your way. A little repentance
will win him back. The disease is in the head--he sees it; not in these
warped limbs that the brain governs. He will go back anon.'
'And reign again by love?'
'I hope so, as first ministers reign.'
'No more? Well, we will back him there.'
'Again, be warned; not your way. Make him no text for the reform which
builds on murder. I have spoken.'
'Well, we will not. _Vale!_'--and the philosopher, bowing his head,
slunk out by the door which the other opened for him.
A little later, creeping into a narrow court which was the 'run' to his
burrow, at the entrance he crossed the path of two cavaliers, whom, upon
their exclaiming over the encounter, he drew under an archway.
They were come from playing pall-mall on the ramparts, and carried over
their shoulders the tools of their sport--thin boxwood mallets, painted
with emblematic devices in scarlet and blue, and having handle-butts of
chased silver. Each gentleman wore red full-hose ending in short-peaked
shoes, a plain red biretta, and a little green bodice coat, tight at the
waist and open at the bosom to leave the arms and shoulders free play.
Montano squinted approval of their flushed faces and strong-breathed
lungs.
'Well exercised,' quoth he, in his high-pitched whisper; 'well
exercised, and betimes belike.'
'News?' drawled Lampugnani. 'O, construe thyself!'
'The Fool,' answered Montano, 'sees through us, that is all.'
'What!' Visconti's brows came down.
'Hush! He hath warned me--not finally; only he pledges his silence on
the discontinuance of my practices on his cub.'
'Well,' said Lampugnani serenely; 'discontinue.'
'Messer, he looks, with certainty, to the boy being won back to court
anon. How, then! shall we let him go?'
'No!' rapped out Visconti.
'Yes,' said Lampugnani. 'I trow his good way is after all our best.
Let him go back, and make the State so fast in love with Love as to
prove Galeazzo impossible. He will sanctify our holocaust for us.'
'But the Fool, Messer--the Fool!'
'Will never conspire against his adored master's exaltation.'
'Exaltation? Would ye let this saint, then, to become the people's
idol?'
'Ay, that we may discredit him presently for an adulterous idol. No
saint so scorned as he whose sanctity trips on woman.'
'What! You think----?'
'Exactly--yes--the Duchess. _Vale_, Messer Montano!'--and he lifted his
cap mockingly, and moved off.
In the meanwhile Cicada, having watched, through a slit of the unclosed
door, the retreat and disappearance of the philosopher, was about to
shut himself in again, with a muttered objurgation or two, when a rapid
step sounded without, and on the instant the door was flung back against
him, and Messer Lanti strode in. There was no opportunity given him to
temporise: the great creature was there in a moment, and had recognised
him with a 'pouf!' of relief. He just accepted the situation, and
closed the door upon them both.
'Well,' he said acridly, 'here you be, and whether for good or ill let
the gods answer!'
Lanti stretched his great chest.
'It is well, Fool; and I am well if he is well. Where is he?'
Cicada pointed. The girl by the forge crouched and glared unwinkingly.
The next moment Carlo was in his loved one's arms.
'Why hast hidden thyself, boy?--ah! it is a long while, boy--good to see
thee again--stand off--I cannot see thee after all--a curse on these
blinking eyes!'
'Dear Carlo, I have been a little ill; my joints ached.'
He wept himself, and fondled and clung to his friend.
'Thou great soft bully! For shame! Why, I love thee, dear. Wert thou
so hurt? O Carlo! I have been most ill in spirit.'
'Come back, and we will nurse thee.'
'Alas! What nurses!'
'The tenderest and most penitent--Bona, first of all.'
The arms slid from his neck. Sweet angel eyes glowered at him.
'Bona to heal my spirit? To pour fire into its wounds rather! O, I had
thought her pure till yesterday!'
And, indeed, Montano, in the furtherance of his corroding policy, had
spared him no evidences of court scandal.
Carlo hung his bullet head.
'Lucia!' cried the boy suddenly and sternly.
The girl, at the word, came slinking to him like a dog, setting her
teeth by the way at the stranger. Bernardo put his hand on her lowered
head.
'Dost know who this is?' he asked of Carlo.
'Why, I can guess.'
'Canst thou, and still talk of Bona's penitence? Here's proof of it--in
this foul deed unexpiated. Was it ever meant it should be?'
He raised his arm denunciatory.
'They have used me to justify their abominations; they have made mine
innocence a pander to their lusts. Beware! God's patience nears
exhaustion. We wait for Tassino. Will he come? Not while lewd arms
imprison and protect him. Talk to me of Bona! Go, child.'
The girl crept back to her former seat. Carlo burst out, low and
urgent:--
'Nay, boy, you do the Duchess wrong; now, by Saint Ambrose, I swear you
do! She hath not set eyes on Jackanapes since that day--believe it--nor
knows, more than another, what's become of him.'
'I could enlighten her. Can she be so fickle?'
'What! Don't you want her fickle? You make my brain turn.'
'O Carlo! What can such a woman see in such a man?'
'God! You have me there. She's just woman, conforming to the
fashions.'
'Ah, me! the fashions!'
'Woman's religion.'
'She was taught a better. The fashions! Her wedding-gown should
suffice her for all.'
'What! Night and day? But, there, I don't defend her!'
'No, indeed. Art thyself a fashion.'
'I don't defend her, I say. I'm worn and cast aside too.'
'Poor fashion! You'll grace your mistress' tire-woman next; and after
her a kitchen-maid; and last some draggled scarecrow of the streets. O,
for shame, for shame!'
'Go on. Compare me to Tassino next.'
'Indeed, I see no difference.'
'A low-born Ferrarese! A greasy upstart! Was carver to the Duke, no
better; and oiled his fingers in the dish, and sleeked his hair!'
'Well, he was made first fashion. The Duchess sets them.'
'Now, by Saint Ambrose! First fashion! this veal-faced scullion, this
fat turnspit promoted to a lap-dog! His fashion was to nurse lusty
babies in his eyes!'
'What nursed thou in thine?'
'Go to! I'm a numskull, that I know; but to see no more in me!'
'I speak not for myself.'
'Why, these women, true, whom we hold so delicate--coarser feeders than
ourselves--their tastes a fable. There, you're right; I've no right to
talk.'
'Not yet.'
'Then, you're wrong. We've parted, I and Beatrice.'
'Carlo!'
'Didst think I 'd risk a quarrel with my saint on so small a matter?'
'Carlo!'
He flew upon the great creature and hugged him.
'My dear, my love! O, I went on so! Why did you let me? O, you give
me hope again!'
'There,' growled the honest fellow, still a little sulkily. ''Twas to
please myself, not you.'
'Not me!'
'Well, if I did, please me by returning.'
Bernardo shook his head.
'And seem to acquiesce in this?' He signified the girl.
'No seeming,' said Lanti. 'The Duchess promises to abet you in
everything. I was to say so, an I could find thee.'
'How did you find me?'
'Let that pass. Will you come?'
'Will she hold Tassino to his bond?'
'She'll try to--I'll answer for it.'
'Will she excuse the Countess of Casa Caprona from her duties to
her--for your sake, dear?'
'No need. The lady's a widow, and already self-dismissed.'
'Alas, a widow! O Carlo, that heavy witness gone before!'
'I must stand it. Will you come?'
'Why is this sudden change? I sore misdoubt it for a fashion.'
'Not sudden. I have her word the court goes all astray without thee.
She pines to mother thee.'
'Mother!--an adulteress for mother! Alack, I am humbled!'
'Not so low as she. That touches the last matter. She wants the ring
back she lent thee.'
'The ring?'
'Ay, the ring.'
'Carlo!'
He searched his clothes and hands in amaze.
'My God! It's gone!'
'Gone? Look again.'
'I had it on my finger. Till this moment I had forgot it clean--my
brain so ached. Cicca!'
He turned in trouble on his servant.
'I know nought of it,' growled the Fool. 'If you had but chose to tell
me. I am no gossip. Bona's ring was it, and leased to thee? Mayhap
the rain that night washed it from thy finger.'
'If it were so--so great a trust abused! O Carlo! What shall I do?'
'Come back and make thy peace with her.'
Yet his brow gloomed, and he shook his head.
'O, O!' choked Bernardo, noting him with anguish.
'She sent a message--I can't help myself,' grunted Carlo. 'Did you seek
to retaliate on her innocent confidence by ruining her? She meant the
ring--your withholding it--'twas her troth-token from the Duke. Well,
this is like getting a woman into trouble.'
Bernardo cast himself with a cry upon him.
'I will go back! I have no longer choice. I must hold myself a hostage
to that loss!'
Carlo let out his satisfaction in a growl. But Cicada, squinting at the
two, and rasping thoughtfully on his chin, pondered a speculation into a
conviction.
'Narcisso!' he mused, 'was it he took it? As sure as he is a villain,
it was Narcisso took it!'
*CHAPTER XV*
The astutest of all the six Sforza brothers was, without question,
Messer Ludovico, at present sojourning in the castello of Milan. No
higher than fourth in point of age, policy or premonition had never
ceased to present him to himself for the first in succession. The
uncertainty of life's tenure, unless ameliorated a little by qualities
of tact and conciliation like his own, made him some excuse for this
secret conviction. His eldest brother was a monster of the order which,
in every age, invites tyrannicide; the Lord of Bari, the second, an
ease-loving, good-humoured monster of another kind (he was to die
shortly, in fact, of his own obesity), he valued only as so much gross
bulk of supineness to be surmounted; Filippo, the third, was an
imbecile, whose very existence was already slipping into the obscurity
which was presently to spell obliteration. There remained only, junior
to himself, Ascanio, a nonentity, and Ottaviano, a headstrong,
irresponsible boy, whose possible destiny concerned him as little as
though he foresaw his drowning, within the year, in the Adda river.
It was true that one other, more shrilly self-assertive, stood between
himself and the light--the Duke's little son, Gian-Galeazzo. Here, most
people would have thought, was his real insuperable barrier.
He did not regard matters from these popular points of view. He was
very patient and far-seeing. At the outset of his career he had adopted
for his device the mulberry-tree, because he had observed it to be
cautious of putting forth its leaves until the last of winter was
assured. He could picture the fatherless child as the most opportune of
all steps to his exaltation. To climb presently those little shoulders
to the regency! It would go hard with him but they sank gradually
crushed under his weight. This was the wise policy, to get his seat as
proxy, and through merciful and enlightened rule secure its permanency.
There was infinite scope in the reaction he would make from a coarse and
bloody despotism. His nature hated violence; his reason recognised the
eternal insecurity of power built on it. Otherwise there was little
doubt he might, in that first emergency, strike with good chance the
straight usurper's stroke. His name, for graciousness and refinement,
already shone like a star in the gross bog of Milan, revealing to it its
foulness. Men, in the shame of their fulsome bondage to tyranny, looked
up to him for hope and sympathy. He was even _persona grata_ with the
people.
But he abhorred, and disbelieved in, violence. He would rule, if at
all, in the popular recognition of great qualities: he would prevail
through bounty and tolerance. Bona was his crux--Bona, and the secretary
Simonetta, a fellow incorruptibly devoted to the reigning family. While
these two lived in credit with the duchy, the regency was secure from
him, and the State, he told himself, from progress. For what
woman-regent had ever mothered an era of enlightenment? Good for Milan,
good for Lombardy, could he once discredit and ruin Bona and Simonetta.
They would fall together. The uses of Tassino as an instrument to this
end had occurred to him--only to be rejected. How could he hope so to
disgrace corruption in corruption's eyes? Such puppyish intrigue was
not worth even the Duke's interference. He rated that curly perfumed
head in Bona's lap at exactly the value of a puppy's.
But, with the advent of the stranger, the little pseudo-oracle, the
child Tiresias, sweet and blind as Cupid, a sounder opportunity offered.
To involve Bona in the defilement of this purity, in the violating of
this holy trust, adored by the people and bequeathed to her by her
lord--that was, in the vernacular, another pair of shoes. He had noted,
with secret gratification, her first coquetting with the pretty toils.
He had heard, with plenteous dismay, of the boy's untimely secession.
But he possessed, almost alone in his tumultuous time, the faculty of
patience; and he was well served by his well-paid spies and agents.
Almost before he could order their reports, almost before he could gauge
the significance of one especial piece of information they gave him, the
boy, won to forgiveness, was back at court again. Thenceforth he saw
his way smoothly, if any term so bland could be applied to such a
devious course of policy.
That was a matter of cross-roads, leading from, or to, himself, the mute
signpost of direction. One, for instance, pointed to Bona's disgrace
through Bembo; another to Simonetta's disgrace through Bona's disgrace;
a third, to Bembo's downfall; a fourth, and last, to his nephew's
orphaned minority. And the meeting-place, the nucleus, of all these
tendencies was--where he himself stood, on a grave. For did they not
bury suicides at cross-roads, and was not Galeazzo's policy suicidal?
Of all these birds he might kill three, at least, with one stone; and
that stone, he believed, was already in his hand, or nearly.
Let it not be supposed that Ludovico was a wicked man. He was destined
to bear one of the greatest of the renaissance reputations; but that
reputation was to draw no less from munificence than from magnificence,
from tolerance than from power. He stood, at this time, on the forehead
of an epoch, feeling the promise of his wings, poising and waiting only
for their maturity. His sympathies were all with progress, with moral
emancipation. He was even now, in Milan (if it can be said without
blasphemy), comparable to Christ in Hades. In a filthy age he was
fastidious; precise and delicate in his speech; one of those men before
whom the insolence of moral offences is instinctively silent.
Guicciardini, a grudging Florentine, nevertheless pronounced him when he
came to rule, 'milde and mercifull'; Arluno credited him with a
sublimity of justice and benevolence. Others, less interested,
testified to his wisdom and sagacity, about which there was certainly no
disputing. If at any period the wrong that is ready to perpetrate
itself in order to procure good is justifiable, it was to be justified
in these corrupt years, when conformity with usage spelt putrefaction.
He could foresee no health for the State in patching its disease. He
was the operator predestined by Providence to remove, stock and block,
the cancer.
Yet, though loving truth, he lied; yet, though hating the sight of
blood, he procured its shedding; yet, though admiring virtue, he did not
hesitate to prostitute it to his ends. There were crimes attributed to
him of which he was no doubt innocent; there were lesser, or worse,
unrecorded, of which he was no doubt guilty. Feeling himself, by
temperament and intellect, the inevitable instrument of a vast
emancipation, recognising his call to be as peremptory as it was
unconsidered, he had no choice, in obeying it, but to cast scruples to
the winds. With him, as with his contemporary the English Richard, a
deep fervour of patriotism was at once the goad and the destruction.
Judgment on the means both took to vindicate their commissions rests
with the gods, who first inspired, then repudiated them. But there is
no logic in Olympus.
Ludovico was sitting one evening in his private cabinet in the castello,
when a lady was announced to him by the soft-voiced page. Every one
instinctively subdued his speech in the presence of Messer Ludovico,
even the rough venderaccios who occasionally came to make him their
reports or receive his instructions.
The lady came in, and stood silent as a statue by the heavy portiere,
which, closed, cut off all eavesdropping as effectively as a mattress.
Nevertheless Messer Ludovico waited for full assurance of the page's
withdrawal before he rose, and courteously greeted his visitor.
'Ave, Madonna Beatrice!' he said. 'You are welcome as the moonlight in
my poor apartment.'
It was so far from being that, as to make the compliment an
extravagance. Yet the beauty of the woman in her long black robe and
mantle, and little black silk cap dropping wings of muslin, sorted
gravely enough with the slumberous gold of picture frames under the
lamplight, and all the sombre sparkle of gems and glass and silver with
which the chamber was strewed in a considered disorder.
'You sent for me, Messer, and I have come,' she said. Her low,
untroubled voice was quite in keeping with the rest.
'Fie, fie!' he answered smoothly. 'I begged a privilege, I begged an
honour--with diffidence, of one so lately stricken. Will you be seated
while I stand?'
As her subject, he meant to imply. She accepted the condescension for
what it was worth. He bent his heavy eyebrows on her pleasantly. They
were full and shaggy for so young a man. Presently she found the
silence intolerable.
'You sent for me, Messer,' she repeated coldly. 'Will you say on
account of which of your interests?'
'See the dangerous intuition of your sex!' he retorted smilingly--'a
weapon wont to cut its wielder's hand. On account of _your_ interest,
purely.'
She glanced up at him with insolent incredulity.
'True,' he said. 'I desired only to save you the consequences of an
imprudence. That troth-ring, Madonna, our Duchess's: is it not rather a
perilous toy to play with?'
She was startled, for all her immobility--so startled, that he could see
the breath jump in her bosom. But, in the very gasp of her fear, she
caught herself to recollection, and stiffened, silent, to the ordeal she
felt was coming.
'How did I know it was in your possession?' he said, with a little
whisper of a laugh. 'Your beauty is ever more speaking than your lips,
Madonna; but I am an oracle: I can read the unspoken question. There is
a creature, Narcisso his name, once fellow to a loved servant of our
court. You know Messer Lanti? an honest, bluff gentleman. He did well
to part with such a dangerous rogue. Why, the times are complicate: we
should be choice in our confidants. This Narcisso is very well to slit
a throat; but to negotiate a delicate theft----'
He paused. 'Go on,' she whispered.
'I will be frank as day,' he purred. ''Twas seen on this rogue's
finger, when making for your house. It was not there when he left.'
'The gloating fool!' She stabbed out the words. 'Seen! By whom?'
'By one,' he answered, 'whose business it was to look for it.'
'Who, I say?'
'Most high lady, the very predestined man--no other. Would you still ask
who? I had thought you more accomplished. Intrigue, like a statue, is
not carved out with a single tool. The eyes, the ears, the lips, each
demand their separate instrument. Dost thou seek to shape all with one?
O, fie, fie!'
He shook his finger gaily at her. She sat, frowning, with her hands
clenched before her; but she gave no answer.
'Why, I am but a tyro,' said the prince; 'yet could I teach thee, it
seems, some first precepts in our craft--as thus: Use things most useful
for their uses; employ not your dagger as a shoe-horn, or it may chance
to cut your heel; an instrument hath its purpose and design; think not
one password will unlock all camps; selection is the cream of
policy--and so on.'
She started to her feet, in an instant resolution.
'I have the ring,' she said.
He bowed suavely. She stared at him.
'What then, Messer?'
'Why,' he said, 'only that, do you not think, it were safer in my hands
than in yours?'
'Safer!' she cried in a suppressed voice; 'for whom?'
'Yourself,' he answered serenely.
'Ah!' she cried, 'you would threaten, if I refuse, to destroy me with
it?'
He made a deprecating motion with his hands.
'Beware,' she said fiercely; 'I can retort. Where is Tassino?'
He looked at her kindly.
'Madonna, do you not know? Nay, do I not know that you know? He lies
hidden in the burrow of this same Narcisso.'
'At whose instigation? Not yours, Messer--O no, of course, not yours!'
His lips never changed from their expression of smiling good-humour.
'Entirely at mine,' he said.
She gave a little gasp. His subtlety was too chill a thing for her
fire; but she struggled against her quenching by it.
'Why do you not produce him, then? Do you not know that he is cried for
high and low? that he is wanted to complete his contract with the
armourer's drab? It is an ill thing to cross, this present ecstasy of
conversion. We are all Bernardines now--lunatics--latter-day
Cistercians--raging neophytes of love.'
'While the ecstasy lasts,' he murmured, unruffled.
'Ah!' she cried violently, 'yet may it last your time. Fanaticism is no
respecter of rank or service. Standest thou so well with Bona? She
would have racked the racker himself in the first fury of her
contrition--torn confession from Jacopo's sullen throat with iron hooks,
had not her saint rebuked her. Tassino had been last seen by him in the
man's company, but, when they went to look for him, he was gone. When
or whither, the fellow swore he knew not. It was like enough, thou
being the lure. Will you not produce him now, and save your peace?'
Ludovico, regarding her vehemence from under half-closed lids, exhibited
not the slightest tremor.
'Madonna,' he said, 'thy mourning beauty becometh thee like Cassandra's.
Hast thou, too, so angered Apollo with thy continence as to make him
nullify in thee his own gift of prophecy? Alas, that lips so moving
must be so discounted in their warnings!'
She drew back, chilled and baffled.
'Thou wilt not?' she muttered. 'Well, then, thou wilt not. Take thou
thine own course; I may not know thy purpose.'
For a moment the cold of him deepened to deadliness, and his voice to an
iron hardness:--
'Nor any like thee--self-seekers--dominated by some single lust. _My_
purpose is a labyrinth of Cnossus. Beware, rash fools, who would seek to
unravel it!'
Her lips were a little parted; the fine wings of her nostrils quivered.
For all her bravery she felt her heart constricting as in the frost of
some terror which she could neither gauge nor compass. But, in the very
instant of her fear, Ludovico was his own bland self again.
'Tools, tools!' he said smiling--'for the eyes, the ears, the lips. I
shall take up this one when I need it, not before. Meanwhile it lies
ready to my hand.'
'I do not doubt thy cunning,' she said faintly.
'What then, Madonna?' he asked.
She struggled with herself, swallowing with difficulty.
'Its adequacy for its purpose--that is all.'
'What purpose?'