Page:Vorse--The ninth man.djvu/89

 One day Simonetta heard Andrea say to our count, "How now, brother; how long shall this shame persist, and when shall I rid you of it?"

"Wait," said my lord count; "there is time enough, there is time enough."

"There's never time enough," said Malatesta, "for a woman to make a plaything of the honor of our house."

"Who says that any has done this?" says Count Bartolommeo. "Shall I be coward enough to plunge all San Moglio in blood because of tattling tongues?"

He stood there before them, black and powerful, a man to love, Simonetta reported him, for his sure courage and for his insolence. Menace there might have been in him, but no weakness ever.

Through this blackness my lady walked as though she saw nothing and heard nothing, until that I could have cried aloud to her to beware of Bartolommeo and his black brothers. Until each night as she went to her bed I thought that I might never see her again. I knew that Bartolommeo was fighting the fight as to whether he should be killed or kill. I knew that he was looking