It was as unmeasured and contemptuous as Francesco's erst recriminations, and it terminated in a challenge to the Count to meet him on horse or foot, with sword or lance, and that as soon as might be.
But Valentina intervened, and rebuked them both.

Yet to Francesco her rebuke was courteous, and ended in a prayer that he should do the best with such resources as Roccaleone offered; to Gonzaga it was contemptuous in the last degree, for Francesco's question--which Gonzaga had left unanswered--coming at a moment when she was full of suspicions of Gonzaga, and the ends he had sought to serve in advising her upon a course which he had since shown himself so utterly unfitted to guide, had opened wide her eyes.

She remembered how strangely moved he had been upon learning yesterday that Gian Maria was marching upon Roccaleone, and how ardently he had advised flight from the fortress--he that had so bravely talked of holding it against the Duke.
They were still wrangling there in a most unseemly fashion when a trumpet-blast reached them from beyond the walls.
"The herald again," she cried.

"Come, Messer Francesco, let us hear what fresh message he brings." She led Francesco away, leaving Gonzaga in the shadow of the vines, reduced well-nigh to tears in the extremity of his mortification.
The herald was returned with the announcement that Valentina's answer left Gian Maria no alternative but to await the arrival of Duke Guidobaldo, who was then marching to join him.

The Duke of Urbino's presence would be, he thought, ample justification in her eyes for the challenge Gian Maria had sent, and which he would send again when her uncle arrived to confirm it.
Thereafter, the remainder of the day was passed in peace at Roccaleone, if we except the very hell of unrest that surged in the heart of Romeo Gonzaga.