"You will tell him that what lances I have in Babbiano I intend to keep, that with them I may defend my own frontiers against his briganding advances.

Messer da Lodi," he added, turning to Fabrizio and without so much as waiting to see if the envoy had anything further to say, "let this gentleman be reconducted to his quarters, and see that he has safe conduct hence until he is out of our Duchy." When the envoy, crimson of face and threatening of eye, had withdrawn under Lodi's escort, Monna Caterina rose, the very incarnation of outraged patience, and poured her bitter invective upon her rash son's head.
"Fool!" she stormed at him.

"There goes your Duchy--in the hollow of that man's hand." Then she laughed in bitterness.

"After all, in casting it from you, perhaps you have chosen the wiser course, for, as truly as there is a God in Heaven, you are utterly unfitted to retain it." "My lady mother," he answered her, with such dignity as he could muster from the wretched heap in which his wits now seemed to lie, "you will be well advised to devote yourself to your woman's tasks, and not to interfere in a man's work." "Man's work!" she sneered.

"And you perform it like a petulant boy or a peevish woman." "I perform it, Madonna, as best seems to me, for it happens that I am Duke of Babbiano," he answered sullenly.