"Still pursuing the old love," he greeted me, smiling and jerking his head
in the direction of Giuliana. "We ever return to it in the end, they say;
yet you had best have a care. It is not well to cross my Lord Pier Luigi
in such matters; he can be a very jealous tyrant."
I wondered was there some double meaning in the words. I made shift to
pass on, leaving his taunt unanswered, when suddenly he stepped up to me
and tapped my shoulder.
"One other thing, sweet cousin. You little deserve a warning at my hands.
Yet you shall have it. Make haste to shake the dust of Pagliano from your
feet. An evil is hanging over you here."
I looked into his wickedly handsome face, and smiled coldly.
"It is a warning which in my turn I will give to you, you jackal," said I,
and watched the expression of his countenance grow set and frozen, the
colour recede from it.
"What do you mean?" he growled, touched to suspicion of my knowledge by the
term I had employed. "What things has that trull dared to..."
I cut in. "I mean, sir, to warn you. "Do not drive me to do more."
We were quite alone. Behind us stretched the long, empty room, before us
the empty gardens. He was without weapons as was I. But my manner was so
fierce that he recoiled before me, in positive fear of my hands, I think.
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