Until you come to recognise that I am a woman endowed with a woman's nature, and until, having realised it, you are prepared to submit to it, and pass me your princely word to urge the Duke of Babbiano's suit no further with me, here will I stay in spite of you, your men-at-arms, and your paltry ally, Gian Maria, who imagines that love may be made successfully in armour, and that a way to a woman's heart is to be opened with cannon-shot." "I think we shall bring you to a more subjective and dutiful frame of mind, Madonna," was the grim answer.
"Dutiful to whom ?" "To the State, a princess of which you have had the honour to be born." "And what of my duty to myself, to my heart, and to my womanhood?
Is no account to be taken of that ?" "These are matters, Madonna, that are not to be discussed in shouts from the walls of a castle--nor, indeed, do I wish to discuss them anywhere.
I am here to summon you to surrender.

If you resist us, you do so at your peril." "Then at my peril I will resist you--gladly.

I defy you.

Do your worst against me, disgrace your manhood and the very name of chivalry by whatsoever violence may occur to you, yet I promise you that Valentina della Rovere never shall become the wife of his Highness of Babbiano." "You refuse to open your gates ?" he returned, in a voice that shook with anger.
"Utterly and finally." "And you think to persist in this ?" "As long as I have life." The Prince laughed sardonically.
"I wash my hands of the affair and of its consequences," he answered grimly.

"I leave it in the care of your future husband, Gian Maria Sforza, and if, in his very natural eagerness for the nuptials, he uses your castle roughly, the blame of it must rest with you.