“Let me tell your honour,” said she, “that your sex has had the monopoly of mine since this world was first put in order.  If you want your Aurelia, as I told you before, you must take her.  Your proposals towards her are very Christian, but I have noticed that it is not the Christians who have the prettiest women at their disposition, but the Turks, of whom there are more in the world than you think for.  Your doctor, for example, was a Turk of the Turks; and what did your Aurelia do but grovel for his rod until you came along, and she said, ’Hey, here is one who is Turchissimo, the grandest of grand Turks, with a longer and sharper rod’?  You had a great chance then, Don Francis—­what under Heaven possessed you to break the rod in her presence, or rather to put it into her hands, saying, ’Behold, madam, the rod.  It is yours, not mine; use it.  I kneel to receive it’?  Why, Lord of Mercies, is this madness?  Let me remind you of what I told you at Prato not so long ago, that to pray at a lady’s feet when you ought to have her in your arms is to prepare misery for the pair of you.  The whole trouble about that precious fault of yours was—­not that you committed it, Dio mio, but that you did not commit it again.  There, sir, that is my opinion—­make what you will of it.”

I was too profoundly dejected to be angry as I ought to have been; I believe I made no reply.  Emboldened, or piqued, by that, she came nearer and spoke with great passion.  “I’ll tell you another thing,” she said.  “I am in your way, and am quite aware of it.  Donna Aurelia and all your fine friends believe that I am with you—­as—­as I am not.  Well, now, Don Francis, you may be rid of me whenever you please.  Fra Palamone is here, and the Marchese Semifonte also.  I have seen them both—­in this very Piazza—­this afternoon.  Once they were together, and once Palamone was here alone.  That means something.  Now, if you choose to hand me over to those two you will do a fine stroke of business.  Your Count Giraldi has a fancy for Donna Aurelia, I can see that plainly.  It suits him very well that I should be here.  Get rid of me, and where is the count?  Do you not see?”

I turned upon her then and reproved her.  “You hurt yourself more than me, Virginia,” I said, “by talking in this strain.  Your word ‘fancy’ is a word of the market.  Grooms fancy a horse at the fair, housewives fancy a leg of lamb, leering ploughboys in a tavern fancy the wench who cleans the pots.  Gentlemen do not so use to beautiful and wise ladies.  You use horrible words, my poor child, but non omnia possumus omnes.”

She listened at first with lowering brows, and eyes which watched me guardedly.  But as I went on, more scornfully than perhaps I thought, a change came over her.  She let fall her arms, she drooped, became distressed.  I saw a tear fall, but I believed that I did well to be angry.