But for me, she concluded, that pursuits must have resulted in her capture, and once they had her back in Rome, willing or unwilling, they would have driven her into the alliance by means of which they sought to bring her fortune into their own house.  This drew her into fresh protestations of the undying gratitude she entertained towards me, protestations which I would have stemmed, but that she persisted in them.

“It is a good and noble thing that you have done,” said she, “and I think that Heaven must have directed you to my aid, for it is scarce likely that in all Italy I should have found another man who would have done so much.”

“Why, what, after all, is this much that I have done?” I cried.  “It is no less than my manhood bade me do; no less than any other would have done seeing you so beset.”

“Nay, that is more than I can ever think,” she answered.  “Who for the sake of an unknown would have suffered such inconveniences as have you?  Who would have returned as you have returned to advise me of the defection of my grooms?  Who, when other escort failed, would have gone the length of journeying all this way to render a service that is beyond repayment?  And, above all, who for the sake of an unknown maid would have submitted to this travesty of yours?”

“Travesty?” quoth I, so struck by that as to interrupt her at last.  “What travesty, Madonna?”

“Why, this garb of motley that you donned the better to fool my pursuers and that you still wear in my poor service.”

I turned in the saddle to stare at her, and in the moonlight I clearly saw her eyes meet mine.  So! that was the reason of her kindness and of the easy familiarity of her speech with me!  She deemed me some knight-errant who caracoled through Italy in quest of imperilled maidens needing aid.  Of a certainty she had gathered her knowledge of the world from the works of Messer Bojardo, or perhaps from the “Amadis of Gaul” of Messer Bernardo Tasso.  And, no doubt, she thought that suits of motley grew on bushes by the roadside, whence those who had a fancy for disguise might cull them.

Well, well, it were better she should know the truth at once, and choose such a demeanour as she considered fitting towards a Fool.  I had no stomach for the courtesies that were meant for such a man as I was not.

“Madonna, you are in error,” I informed her, speaking slowly.  “This garb is no travesty.  It is my usual raiment.”

There was a pause and I saw the slackening of her reins.  No doubt, had we been afoot she would have halted, the better to confront me.

“How?” she asked, and a new note, imperious and chill, was sounding already in her voice.  “You would not have me understand that you are by trade a Fool?

“Allowing that I am not a fool by birth, under what other circumstances, think you, I should be likely to wear the garments of a Fool?”

“But this morning,” she protested, after a brief pause, “when first I met you, you were not so arrayed.”