Bellarion, whose bold, penetrating glance saw everything, whose rigid features betrayed nothing, steered a careful course by the aid of philosophy and a sense of humour which grew steadily and concurrently with the growth of his knowledge of men and women.
If he had a trouble in those days when he was lodged in Facino’s apartments in the ducal palace, it lay in the too assiduous attentions of the Countess Beatrice. She was embittered with grievances against Facino, old natural grievances immeasurably increased by a more recent one; and to his discomfort it was to Bellarion that she went with her plaints.
“I am twenty years younger than is he,” she said, which was an exaggeration, the truth being that she was exactly fifteen years her husband’s junior. “I am as much of an age to be his daughter as are you, Bellarion, to be his son.”
Bellarion refused to perceive in this the assertion that she and Bellarion were well matched in years.
“Yet, madonna,” said he gently, “you have been wed these ten years. It is a little late to repine. Why did you marry him?”
“Ten years ago he seemed none so old as now.”
“He wasn’t. He was ten years younger. So were you.”
“But the difference seemed less. We appeared to be more of an age until the gout began to trouble him. Ours was a marriage of ambition. My father compelled me to it. Facino would go far, he said. And so he would, so he could, if he were not set on cheating me.”
“On cheating you, madonna?”
“He could be Duke of Milan if he would. Not to take what is offered him is to cheat me, considering why I married him.”
“If this were so, it is the price you pay for having cheated him by taking him to husband. Did you tell him this before you were wed?”
“As if such things are ever said! You are dull sometimes, Bellarion.”
“Perhaps. But if they are not said, how are they to be known?”
“Why else should I have married a man old enough to be my father? It was no natural union. Could a maid bring love to such a marriage?”
“Ask someone else, madonna.” His manner became frosty. “I know nothing of maids and less of love. These sciences were not included in my studies.”
And then, finding that hints were wasted against Bellarion’s armour of simplicity—an armour assumed like any other panoply—she grew outrageously direct.
“I could repair the omission for you, Bellarion,” she said, her voice little more than a tremulous whisper, her eyes upon the ground.
Bellarion started as if he had been stung. But he made a good recovery.
“You might; if there were no Facino.”
She flashed him an upward glance of anger, and the colour flooded her face. Bellarion, however, went calmly on.
“I owe him a debt of loyalty, I think; and so do you, madonna. I may know little of men, but from what I have seen I cannot think that there are many like Facino. It is his loyalty and honesty prevents him from gratifying your ambition.”
It is surprising that she should still have wished to argue with him. But so she did.
“His loyalty to whom?”
“To the Duke his master.”
“That animal! Does he inspire loyalty, Bellarion?”
“To his own ideals, then.”
“To anything in fact but me,” she complained. “It is natural enough, perhaps. Just as he is too old for me, so am I too young for him. You should judge me mercifully when you remember that, Bellarion.”
“It is not mine to judge you at all, madonna, and Heaven preserve me from such presumption. It is only mine to remember that all I have and all I am, I owe to my Lord Count, and that he is my adoptive father.”
“You’ll not, I hope, on that account desire me to be a mother to you,” she sneered.
“Why not? It is an amiable relationship.”
She flung away in anger at that. But only to return again on the morrow to invite his sympathy and his consolation, neither of which he was prepared to afford her. Her wooing of him grew so flagrant, so reckless in its assaults upon the defences behind which he entrenched himself, that one day he boldly sallied forth to rout her in open conflict.
“What do you seek of me that my Lord Count cannot give you?” he demanded. “Your grievance against him is that he will not make you a duchess. Your desire in life is to become a duchess. Can I make you that if he cannot?”
But it was he, himself, who was routed by the counterattack.
“How you persist in misunderstanding me! If I desire of him that he make me a duchess, it is because it is the only thing that he can make me. Cheated of love, must I be cheated also of ambition?”
“Which do you rate more highly?”
She raised that perfect ivory-coloured face, from which the habitual insolent languor had now all been swept; her deep blue eyes held nothing but entreaty and submission.
“That must depend upon the man who brings it.”
“To the best of his ability my Lord Facino has brought you both.”
“Facino! Facino!” she cried out in sudden petulance. “Must you always be thinking of Facino?”
He bowed a little. “I hope so, madonna,” he answered with a grave finality.
And meanwhile the profligate court of Gian Maria observed this assiduity of Facino’s lady, and the Duke himself set the fashion of making it a subject for jests. It is not recorded of him
