And having kissed it I started upright and made to advance again; but she snatched her hand from my clasp and waved me away, at once so imperiously and beseechingly that I turned and went to shut myself in the library with my bewilderment.
For full two days thereafter, for no reason that I could clearly give, I avoided her, and save at table and in her husband's presence we were never once together.
The repasts were sullen things at which there was little said, Madonna sitting in a frozen dignity, and the doctor, a silent man at all times, being now utterly and forbiddingly mute.
But once my Lord Gambara supped with us, and he was light and trivial as ever, an incarnation of frivolity and questionable jests, apparently entirely unconscious of Fifanti's chill reserve and frequent sneers.
Indeed, I greatly marvelled that a man of my Lord Gambara's eminence and Governor of Piacenza should so very amiably endure the boorishness of that pedant.
Explanation was about to be afforded me.
On the third day, as we were dining, Giuliana announced that she was going afoot into the town, and solicited my escort.

It was an honour that never before had been offered me.

I reddened violently, but accepted it, and soon thereafter we set out, just she and I together.
We went by way of the Fodesta Gate, and passed the old Castle of Sant' Antonio, then in ruins--for Gambara was demolishing it and employing the material to construct a barrack for the Pontifical troops that garrisoned Piacenza.

And presently we came upon the works of this new building, and stepped out into mid-street to avoid the scaffoldings, and so pursued our way into the city's main square--the Piazza del Commune, overshadowed by the red-and-white bulk of the Communal Palace.

This was a noble building, rather in the Saracenic manner, borrowing a very warlike air from the pointed battlements that crowned it.
Near the Duomo we came upon a great concourse of people who were staring up at the iron cage attached to the square tower of the belfry near its summit.