Patience was the one virtue that Valentina more than any woman--and there had been many in his young life--had inculcated into a soul that in the main was anything but virtuous.

He came a step nearer, and leant lightly against the edge of her seat, his shapely legs crossed, his graceful body inclining ever so slightly towards her.
"You are pensive, Madonna," he murmured, in his rich, caressing voice.
"Why then," she reproved him, but in a mild tone, "do you intrude upon my thoughts ?" "Because they seem sad thoughts, Madonna." he answered, glibly, "and I were a poor friend did I not seek to rouse you out of them." "You are that, Gonzaga ?" she questioned, without looking at him.

"You are my friend ?" He seemed to quiver and then draw himself upright, whilst across his face there swept a shade of something that may have been good or bad or partly both.

Then he leant down until his head came very near her own.
"Your friend ?" quoth he.

"Ah, more than your friend.