At this occupation he had caught her, and there is no doubt that he would have taken a rude vengeance but for the sanctuary which she had found in me.
And when I had heard, behold me for the first time indulging the prerogative that was mine by right of birth, and dispensing justice at Mondolfo like the lord of life and death that I was there.
"You, Rinolfo," I said, "will set no more snares here at Mondolfo, nor will you ever again enter these gardens under pain of my displeasure and its consequences.

And as for this child, if you dare to molest her for what has happened now, or if you venture so much as to lay a finger upon her at any time and I have word of it, I shall deal with you as with a felon.

Now go." He went straight to his father, the seneschal, with a lying tale of my having threatened him with violence and forbidden him ever to enter the garden again because he had caught me there with Luisina--as the child was called--in my arms.

And Messer Giojoso, full of parental indignation at this gross treatment of his child, and outraged chastity at the notion of a young man of churchly aims, as were mine, being in perversive dalliance with that peasant-wench, repaired straight to my mother with the story of it, which I doubt not lost nothing by its repetition.
Meanwhile I abode there with Luisina.

I was in no haste to let her go.
Her presence pleased me in some subtle, quite indefinable manner; and my sense of beauty, which, always strong, had hitherto lain dormant within me, was awake at last and was finding nourishment in the graces of her.
I sat down upon the topmost of the terrace steps, and made her sit beside me.