On the other hand, what was the penalty that she would have paid if she had encouraged his addresses as far as he would have carried them?
Her disgrace, a stigma left on her family, and the loss of all that character which upholds a woman in her own estimation and in that of the world.

I would not go so far as to say that she did not at times betray an anxiety to retain him under the spell of her fascination, as, for instance, when she is said to have cast her eyes to the ground in sadness when he announced his intention to leave Avignon; but still I should like to hear her own explanation before I condemned her.

And, after all, she was only anxious for the continuance of attentions, respecting which she had made a fixed understanding that they should not exceed the bounds of innocence.
We have no distinct account how her husband regarded the homage of Petrarch to his wife--whether it flattered his vanity, or moved his wrath.

As tradition gives him no very good character for temper, the latter supposition is the more probable.

Every morning that he went out he might hear from some kind friend the praises of a new sonnet which Petrarch had written on his wife; and, when he came back to dinner, of course his good humour was not improved by the intelligence.