I realized my meanness and unworthiness.
"Have patience with me," I implored her.

"I...

I am not myself to-day." I sighed ponderously, and fell silent as I watched them ride away.

Yet I hated them all; and most of all I hated the dainty, perfumed, golden-headed Cardinal-legate.
He came again upon the morrow, and we learnt from the news of which he was the bearer that he had carried out his threat concerning Messer Caro.

The poet was on his way to Parma, to Duke Pier Luigi, dispatched thither on a mission of importance by the Cardinal.