Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/344

332 "My Lord, my Lord," cried Angioletto here, "I will answer for my wife's honour with my last drop of blood. It is her person I cannot answer for if I am in prison."

"I have told you that I will answer for her person, master poet. I would much rather leave her honour to you and your drops of blood. So you may go to the Castle with a clear mind. To the Castle, moreover, you shall undoubtedly go, if it is only to teach you that the possession of a wife is no passport to other men's chimneys. First, however, I will ask you to do me a small service, which is to go to my bedchamber and send me my gentlemen, my dresser, and my clothes. I am, you perceive, entirely at your mercy. You will follow these persons back to me here, and will then give yourself up as I shall direct."

Angioletto, out of bed by this time, knelt to the Duke's hand.

"I am your Grace's servant," said he. He hastily dressed himself and went about the business he was bidden on.

"Madam the Virgin," said Borso, with a half-laugh, "that is a fine young man! If he had not made so free with my chimneys I would advance him. Advanced he shall be!" he cried out after a while. "Zounds! has not Guarino made free with his wife? Eh, but I fear it." He shook his nightcap at the thought. "A couple of days' reflection in a half light will do the lad no harm. He'll dream of his wife, or compose me some songs. Bellaroba, he called her. I remember the jade—a demure, rosy-