Here
I stay to guard what is my own."
"You are a fool," said Giuliana at length, "and a knave, too, for you
insult me without cause."
"Without cause? 0, without cause, eh? By the Host! Yet you would not
have me stay?"
"I would not have you gaoled, which is what will happen if you disobey the
Duke's magnificence," said she.
"Gaoled?" quoth he, of a sudden trembling in the increasing intensity of
his passion. "Caged, perhaps--to die of hunger and thirst and exposure,
like that poor wretch Domenico who perished yesterday, at last, because he
dared to speak the truth. Gesu!" he groaned. "0, miserable me!" And he
sank into a chair.
But the next instant he was up again, and his long arms were waving
fiercely. "By the Eyes of God! They shall have cause to cage me. If I am
to be horned like a bull, I'll use those same horns. I'll gore their
vitals. O madam, since of your wantonness you inclined to harlotry, you
should have wedded another than Astorre Fifanti."
It was too much. I leapt to my feet.
"Messer Fifanti," I blazed at him. "I'll not remain to hear such words
addressed to this sweet lady."
"Ah, yes," he snarled, wheeling suddenly upon me as if he would strike me.
"I had forgot the champion, the preux-chevalier, the saint in embryo! You
will not remain to hear the truth, sir, eh?" And he strode, mouthing, to
the door, and flung it wide so that it crashed against the wall.
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