One night as I sat in the gallery above the great hall, watching them
footing it upon the mosaic floor below, Giuliana's deep, slow voice behind
me stirred me out of my musings. She had espied me up there and had come
to join me, although hitherto I had most sedulously avoided her, neither
addressing her nor giving her the opportunity to address me since the first
brazen speech on her arrival.
"That white-faced lily, Madonna Bianca de' Cavalcanti, seems to have caught
the Duke in her net of innocence," said she.
I started round as if I had been stung, and at sight of my empurpling face
she slowly smiled, the same hateful smile that I had seen upon her face
that day in the garden when Gambara had bargained for her with Fifanti.
"You are greatly daring," said I.
"To take in vain the name of her white innocence?" she answered, smiling
superciliously. And then she grew more serious. "Look, Agostino, we were
friends once. I would be your friend now."
"It is a friendship, Madonna, best not given expression."
"Ha! We are very scrupulous--are we not?--since we have abandoned the ways
of holiness, and returned to this world of wickedness, and raised our eyes
to the pale purity of the daughter of Cavalcanti!" She spoke sneeringly.
"What is that to you?" I asked.
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