And if I turned to you in my hour of need, as you remind me, needs that be a sign of my infatuation?
Does every cavalier so think when a helpless woman turns to him in her distress?
But even so," she continued, "how should all that diminish the peril you now talk of?
Even were your suit with me to prosper, would that make you any the less Romeo Gonzaga, the butt of the anger of my uncle and Gian Maria?
Rather do I think that it should make you more." But he disillusioned her.

He did not scruple, in his angry mood, to lay before her his reasonings that as her husband he would be screened.
She laughed aloud at that.
"And so it is by such sophistries as these that your presumption came to life ?" That stung him.

Quivering with the passion that obsessed him, he stepped close up to her.
"Tell me, Madonna--why shall we account presumption in Romeo Gonzaga a suit that in a nameless adventurer we encourage ?" he asked, his voice thick and tremulous.
"Have a care," she bade him.
"A care of what ?" he flashed back.

"Answer me, Monna Valentina.

Am I so base a man that by the very thought of love for you I must presume, whilst you can give yourself into the arms of this swashbuckling bravo, and take his kisses?
Your reasoning sorts ill with your deeds." "Craven!" she answered him.