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He had been assured by his priest that, under the circumstances, the church would dissolve this young lady's marriage with Paltravi, and if Florino would marry her Jaqui might look forward to a peaceful life. Now whether the priest had a right to say this I will not take it on myself to say; but he did say it: and so Jaqui did not feel called upon to interfere with the courtship of the fool-poet.
She was beautiful and popular, and adopted new fashions as soon as she learned them. Jaqui had nothing to say to all this; he had no right now to keep people from seeing her. "Very soon there came to her the fool-poet. Now Jaqui began to hope.
The lady's husband had placed her in his charge, and he would not stand tamely by and see her deserted by her lover, who had given everybody reason to believe that he intended to make her his own. "But Jaqui put back his sword, for the fool-poet showed no signs of fight, and then he used argument.
Here was a lady very near his own age, still beautiful, very intelligent, living in the same house with him, glad to see him whenever he chose to visit her. It was all as clear as daylight, and it was not long before he was in such a state of mind that he would have fallen upon Florino with a drawn sword if the fool-poet had dared to renew his addresses to Donna Paltravi."
He found the fool-poet in a fit of the doleful dumps. At first the young man refused to talk: but, when Jaqui pressed him, he admitted that he had not quarrelled with the lady; that she did not know why he was staying away; that he had received several notes from her, and that he had not answered them. Then Jaqui grew very angry and half drew his sword. This was a matter in which he was concerned.
"Jaqui was now a happy man. Here was the owner of the lady, ready to take her off his hands and relieve him of all the perplexing responsibility and misery which her possession had caused him. As he looked at the stalwart figure of the returned husband it made him laugh to think of the fool-poet.
For a time it interested Jaqui to listen to the rhapsodies and observe the exaltation of the fool-poet, but he soon had enough of this amorous insanity, and prepared to close the box. Then Florino burst into wild entreaties only ten minutes more, five minutes, three minutes, anything! So it went on until the poet had been feasting his eyes on the lady for nearly half an hour.
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