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.
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