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"Hold," cried the marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years, "hold! Gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother! what, indeed, do I owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life.
It was a bit of mediaeval phrasing written for the pipe and the viol. It made the piano seem a ponderous, nerve-wracking steam-roller of noise, and the violin, as we know it, a hateful wire-drawn nerve-torturer. After a little while, when he entered the smaller room again, the Marchesa looked full into his face. "Good!" she said. "Good!" And a gleam almost of happiness seemed to light her up.
The opposition which the members of the house of Este at first had shown her had disappeared, and, especially in the case of Isabella Gonzaga, had changed into affection, as is proved by the extensive correspondence which the two women maintained up to the time of Lucretia's death. In the archives of the house of Gonzaga there are several hundred of her letters to the Marchesa of Mantua.
So the boat shot out upon the crisping water into the light afternoon breeze, and up went foresail and mainsail and jib, and away she went on the port tack, San Miniato steering and talking to Beatrice which things are not to be done together with advantage the Marchesa lying back in a cane rocking-chair and thinking of nothing, while Teresina held the parasol over her mistress's head and shot bright glances at the sailors forward.
He loved talking English, and holding his listeners spell-bound. Next to Aaron on the sofa sat the Marchesa del Torre, an American woman from the Southern States, who had lived most of her life in Europe. She was about forty years of age, handsome, well-dressed, and quiet in the buzz of the tea-party. It was evident she was one of Algy's lionesses.
"What news have you heard?" asked Beppo Malatesta. "There's such a lot." "Wall, the news I have heard is, that Count Nobili is engaged to marry the Marchesa Guinigi's little niece. Dear little thing, they say like an English 'mees' fair, with red hair." "Is that your style of beauty?" lisped Orazio, looking hard at him. But Ruspoli did not notice him. "But that's not half," cried Malatesta.
A short period of intoxication was followed by an unexampled awakening. She was clasping her first child to her breast, when the unprecedented outrage occurred Don Luis demanded that she should move with him into the house of a notorious Marchesa, in whose ill-famed gambling-rooms he had spent his evenings and nights for months.
They know that now the marchesa is come she will grind and harry them, and seize her share of grapes, and corn, and olives, to the uttermost farthing. Silvestro, her steward, a timid, pitiful man, can be got over by soft words, and the sight of want and misery. Not so the marchesa.
"The bungler, the greenhorn!" he exclaimed out loud, as so often in such self-communings. "He did not know how to make a good use of his opportunities. Or the Marchesa was hanging round his neck all the time. Or perhaps he took her as a next-best, when Marcolina, the philosopher, the woman of learning, proved unattainable!" Suddenly a thought struck him.
"Afraid!" and the marchesa laughs a loud and scornful laugh; "you were not, afraid to meet this man in secret." "No. Fear him! what had I to fear? Nobili loves me." The word was spoken. Now she had courage to meet the marchesa's gaze unmoved, spite of the menace of her look and attitude.
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