“I was arrayed even as I am now, in a cloak and hat and boots that hid my motley from such undiscerning eyes as were yours and your grooms’—­all taken up with your own fears as you then were.”

There was in the tail of that a sting, as I meant there should be, for the sudden haughtiness of her tone was cutting into me.  Was I less worthy of thanks because I was a Fool?  Had I on that account done less to serve and save her?  Or was it that the action which, in a spurred and armoured knight, had been accounted noble was deemed unworthy of thanks in a crested, motleyed jester?  It seemed, indeed, that some such reasoning she followed, for after that we spoke no more until we were approaching Fano.

A many times before had I felt the shame of my ignoble trade, but never so acutely as at that moment.  It had seared my soul when Giovanni Sforza had told my story to his Court, ere he had driven me from Pesaro with threats of hanging, and it had burned even deeper when later, Madonna Lucrezia, upon entrusting me with her letter to her brother, had upbraided me with the supineness that so long had held me in that vile bondage.  But deepest of all went now the burning iron of that disgrace.  For my companion’s silence seemed to argue that had she known my quality she would have scorned the aid of which she had availed herself to such good purpose.  If any doubt of this had mercifully remained me, her next words would have served to have resolved it.  It was when the lights of Fano gleamed ahead; we were coming to a cross-roads, and I urged the turning to the left.

“But Fano is in front,” she remonstrated coldly.

“This way we can avoid the town and gain the Pesaro road beyond it,” answered I, my tone as cool as hers.

“Yet may it not be that at Fano I might find an escort?”

I could have cried out at her cruelty, for in her words I could but read my dismissal from her service.  There had been no more talk of an escort other than that which I afforded, and with which at first she had been well content.

I sat my mule in silence for a moment.  She had been very justly served had I been the vassal that she deemed me, and had I borne myself in that character without consideration of her sex, her station or her years.  She had been very justly served had I wheeled about and left her there to make her way to Fano, and thence to Pesaro, as best she might.  She was without money, as I knew, and she would have found in Fano such a reception as would have brought the bitter tears of late repentance to her pretty eyes.

But I was soft-hearted, and, so, I reasoned with her; yet in a manner that was to leave her no doubt of the true nature of her situation, and the need to use me with a little courtesy for the sake of what I might yet do, if she lacked the grace to treat me with gratitude for the sake of that which I had done already.

“Madonna,” said I.  “It were wiser to choose the by-road and forego the escort, since we have dispensed with it so far.  There are many reasons why a lady should not seek to enter Fano at this hour of night.”