"I did not dream--I did not dare to dream--that it was my help you sought.
My sympathy, I believed, was all that you invited, and so, lest I should seem presumptuous, it was all I offered.

But if my help you need; if you seek a means to evade this alliance that you rightly describe as odious, such help as it lies in a man's power to render shall you have from me." He spoke almost fiercely and with a certain grim confidence, for all that as yet no plan had formed itself in his mind.
Indeed, had a course been clear to him, there had been perhaps less confidence in his tone, for, after all, he was not by nature a man of action, and his character was the very reverse of valiant.

Yet so excellent an actor was he as to deceive even himself by his acting, and in this suggestion of some vague fine deeds that he would do, he felt himself stirred by a sudden martial ardour, and capable of all.

He was stirred, too, by the passion with which Valentina's beauty filled him--a passion that went nearer to making a man of him than Nature had succeeded in doing.
That now, in the hour of her need, she should turn so readily to him for assistance, he accepted as proof that she was not deaf to the voice of this great love he bore her, but of which he never yet had dared to show a sign.

The passing jelousy that he had entertained for that wounded knight they had met at Acquasparta was laid to rest by her present attitude towards him, the knight, himself forgotten.
As for Valentina, she listened to his ready speech and earnest tone with growing wonder both at him and at herself.