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For even if the notion of besieging Valentina and reducing her by force of arms was not Guidobaldo's own in the first place, yet he lent a very willing ear to the counsel that they should thus proceed, when angrily urged two days thereafter by the Duke of Babbiano.
At the news, and upon reading the proclamation, which Alvari had brought with him, Gian Maria flew into one of those fits of rage that made his name a byword in Babbiano. Presently, however, he cooled. There was Gonzaga yonder, who had promised to admit him to Roccaleone on Wednesday.
"And since when has Babbiano been a republic or is it your aim to make it one, and establish yourself as its chief magistrate?" "If you misapprehend me so " began Francesco, but his cousin interrupted him with heightening scorn. "Misapprehend you, Messer Franceschino? No, no. I understand you but too well." He rose suddenly from his interrupted meal, and came a step nearer his cousin.
And yet the reason was not far to seek, had they but cared to follow the line of thought to which he, himself, had given them the clue when he referred to the voice he had heard, and the sights he had seen in the streets of Babbiano. The voice was the voice that had acclaimed his cousin Francesco Duke. That it was through that a fierce jealousy had fired him.
Thus was the second siege of Roccaleone ended almost as soon as it was begun, and thus did Gian Maria capitulate to the conqueror. The Duke of Babbiano and his men marched out sheepishly and silently, and took their way to Babbiano, no word not even so much as a glance passing between Gian Maria and the lady who had been the cause of his discomfiture, and who blithely looked on at his departure.
"Rogue in your teeth, be you twenty times a Duke," returned the other, at which Valentina laughed outright. Never from the day when he had uttered his first wail had his Highness of Babbiano heard words of such import from the lips of living man. A purple flush mottled his cheeks at the indignity of it. "Attend to me, knave!" he bellowed.
And this in that moment the Duke of Babbiano realised too, and realising it he set himself to plead where otherwise he might have demanded, to beg as a favour that which otherwise he might have commanded with a threat.
In a brief preamble he touched upon the character of Gian Maria Sforza, the reigning Duke of Babbiano seated upon its throne by his powerful uncle, Lodovico Sforza, Lord of Milan. He exposed the man's reckless extravagances, his continued self-indulgence, his carelessness in matters of statecraft, and his apparent disinclination to fulfil the duties which his high station imposed upon him.
Then she remembered, too, how that very evening Francesco had said that he was fretting for news of Babbiano, and that when she had asked how he hoped that news could reach him at Roccaleone, Gonzaga had entered before he answered her. Indeed, he had seemed to hesitate upon that answer. A sudden chill encompassed her at that reflection. Oh, it was impossible, absurd!
Yet should his Highness come to hear of your presence in these parts and in my company, suspicion might set him on the road that leads to knowledge." "Ah! And then?" "Then?" returned the other, eyeing Francesco in surprise. "Why, then, the hopes we found on you the hopes of every man in Babbiano worthy of the name would be frustrated.
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