Madonna Paola was leaning towards the Lord Giovanni, her eyes shining with excitement and filmed with tears as they proudly met his glance, and I knew that my song had but served to endear him the more to her by causing her to realise more keenly the brave qualities of the adventure that I sang.  The sight of it almost turned me faint, and I would have eluded them and got away as I had come but that they lifted me up and bore me so to the table at which the Lord Giovanni sat.  He smiled, but his face was very pale.  Could it be that I had touched him?  Could it be that I had driven the iron into his soul, and that he could not bear to confront me, knowing what a dastard I must deem him?

The splendid Filippo of Santafior had risen to his feet, and was waving a white, bejewelled hand in an imperious demand for silence.  When at last it came he spoke, his voice silvery and his accents mincing.

“Lord of Pesaro; I demand a boon.  He who for years has suffered the ignominy of the motley is at last revealed to us as a poet of such magnitude of soul and richness of expression that he would not suffer by comparison with the great Bojardo or tim greater Virgil.  Let him be stripped for ever of that hideous garb he wears, and let him be treated, hereafter, with the dignity his high gifts deserve.  Thus shall the day come when Pesaro will take honour in calling him her son.”

Loud and long was the applause that succeeded his words, and when at last it had died down, the Lord Giovanni proved equal to the occasion, like the consummate actor that he was.

“I would,” said he, “that these high gifts, of which to-night he has afforded proof, could have been employed upon a worthier subject.  I fear me that since you have heard his epic you will be prone to overestimate the deed of which it tells the story.  I would, too, my friends,” he continued, with a sigh, “that it were still mine to offer him such encouragement as he deserves.  But I am sorely afraid that my days in Pesaro are numbered, that my sands are all but run—­at least, for a little while.  The conqueror is at our gates, and it would be vain to set against the overwhelming force of his numbers the handful of valiant knights and brave soldiers that to-day opposed and scattered his forerunners.  It is my intention to withdraw, now that my honour is safe by what has passed, and that none will dare to say that it was through fear that I fled.  Yet my absence, I trust, may be but brief.  I go to collect the necessary resources, for I have powerful friends in this Italy whose interests touching the Duca Valentino go hand in hand with mine, and who will, thus, be the readier to lend me assistance.  Once I have this, I shall return and then—­woe to the vanquished!”

The tide of enthusiasm that had been rising as he spoke, now overflowed.  Swords leapt from their scabbards—­mere toy weapons were they, meant more for ornament than offence, yet were they the earnest of the stouter arms those gentlemen were ready to wield when the time came.  He quieted their clamours with a dignified wave of the hand.