"
"And you?" I cried, for this thrust aside my every doubt.
"And I declined the honour," he answered sternly, rising in his agitation.
"I declined it in such terms as to leave them no doubt upon the irrevocable
quality of my determination; and then this pestilential Duke had the
effrontery to employ smiling menaces, to remind me that he had the power to
compel folk to bend the knee to his will, to remind me that behind him he
had the might of the Pontiff and even of the Holy Office. And when I
defied him with the answer that I was a feudatory of the Emperor, he
suggested that the Emperor himself must bow before the Court of the
Inquisition."
"My God!" I cried in liveliest fear.
"An idle threat!" he answered contemptuously, and set himself to stride the
room, his hands clasped behind his broad back.
"What have I to do with the Holy Office?" he snorted. "But they had worse
indignities for me, Agostino. They mocked me with a reminder that Giovanni
d'Anguissola had been my firmest friend. They told me they knew it to have
been my intention that my daughter should become the Lady of Mondolfo, and
to cement the friendship by making one State of Pagliano, Mondolfo and
Carmina. And they added that by wedding her to Cosimo d'Anguissola was the
way to execute that plan, for Cosimo, Lord of Mondolfo already, should
receive Carmina as a wedding-gift from the Duke.
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