But your watchful spies, Ser Francesco, bore it to you, and if my shame has been paraded before the eyes of that rabble soldiery, at least it has served the purpose of saving Monna Valentina.

To do that, I would, if the need arose, immolate more than the pride that caused me to be silent on the matter of this communication." He spoke with such heat of sincerity that he convinced both Francesco and Valentina, and the lady's eyes took on a softer expression as she surveyed Gonzaga--this poor Gonzaga whom, her heart told her, she had sorely wronged in thought.

Francesco, ever generous, took his passionate utterances in excellent part.
"Messer Gonzaga, I understand your scruples.

You do me wrong to think that I should fail in that." He checked the suggestion he was on the point of renewing that, nevertheless, Gonzaga would have been better advised to have laid that letter at once before Monna Valentina.

Instead, he dismissed the subject with a laugh, and proposed that they should break their fast so soon as he had put off his harness.
He went to do so, whilst Valentina bent her steps towards the dining-room, attended by Gonzaga, to whom she now sought to make amends for her suspicions by an almost excessive friendliness of bearing.
But there was one whom Gonzaga's high-sounding words in connection with that letter had left cold.