AND so my life went on for a little while, filled with pleasure and amusement. I was contented with my lot, and had no wish for change. The time went by, and we reached the first week in April. Girolamo had organised a great ball to celebrate the completion of his Palace. He had started living in it as soon as there were walls and roof, but he had spent years on the decorations, taking into his service the best artists he could find in Italy; and now at last everything was finished. The Orsi had been invited with peculiar cordiality, and on the night we betook ourselves to the Palace.

We walked up the stately staircase, a masterpiece of architecture, and found ourselves in the enormous hall which Girolamo had designed especially for gorgeous functions. It was ablaze with light. At the further end, on a low stage, led up to by three broad steps, under a daïs, on high-backed, golden chairs, sat Girolamo and Caterina Sforza. Behind them, in a semicircle, and on the steps at each side, were the ladies of Caterina's suite, and a number of gentlemen; at the back, standing like statues, a row of men-at-arms.

'It is almost regal!' said Checco, pursing up his lips.

'It is not so poor a thing to be the Lord of Forli,' answered Matteo. Fuel to the fire!

We approached, and Girolamo, as he saw us, rose and came down the steps.

'Hail, my Checco!' he said, taking both his hands. 'Till you had come the assembly was not complete.'

Matteo and I went to the Countess. She had surpassed herself this night. Her dress was of cloth of silver, shimmering and sparkling. In her hair were diamonds shining like fireflies in the night; her arms, her neck, her fingers glittered with costly gems. I had never seen her look so beautiful, nor so magnificent. Let them say what they liked, Checco and Matteo and the rest of them, but she was born to be a queen. How strange that this offspring of the rough Condottiere and the lewd woman should have a majesty such as one imagines of a mighty empress descended from countless kings.

She took the trouble to be particularly gracious to us. Me she complimented on some verses she had seen, and was very flattering in reference to a pastoral play which I had arranged. She could not congratulate my good Matteo on any intellectual achievements, but the fame of his amours gave her a subject on which she could playfully reproach him. She demanded details, and I left her listening intently to some history which Matteo was whispering in her ear; and I knew he was not particular in what he said.

I felt in peculiarly high spirits, and I looked about for someone on whom to vent my good humour. I caught sight of Giulia. I had seen her once or twice since my return to Forli, but had never spoken to her. Now I felt sure of myself; I knew I did not care two straws for her, but I thought it would please me to have a little revenge. I looked at her a moment. I made up my mind; I went to her and bowed most ceremoniously.

'Donna Giulia, behold the moth!' I had used the simile before, but not to her, so it did not matter.

She looked at me undecidedly, not quite knowing how to take me.

'May I offer you my arm,' I said as blandly as I could.

She smiled a little awkwardly and took it.

'How beautiful the Countess is to-night!' I said. 'Everyone will fall in love with her.' I knew she hated Caterina, a sentiment which the great lady returned with vigour. 'I would not dare say it to another; but I know you are never jealous: she is indeed like the moon among the stars.'

'The idea does not seem too new,' she said coldly.

'It is all the more comprehensible. I am thinking of writing a sonnet on the theme.'

'I imagined it had been done before; but the ladies of Forli will doubtless be grateful to you.'

She was getting cross; and I knew by experience that when she was cross she always wanted to cry.

'I am afraid you are angry with me,' I said.

'No, it is you who are angry with me,' she answered rather tearfully.

'I? Why should you think that?'

'You have not forgiven me for—'

I wondered whether the conscientious Giorgio had had another attack of morality and ridden off into the country.

'My dear lady,' I said, with a little laugh, 'I assure you that I have forgiven you entirely. After all, it was not such a very serious matter.'

'No?' She looked at me with a little surprise.

I shrugged my shoulders.

'You were quite right in what you did. Those things have to finish some time or other, and it really does not so much matter when.'

'I was afraid I had hurt you,' she said in a low voice.

The scene came to my mind; the dimly-lit room, the delicate form lying on the couch, cold and indifferent, while I was given over to an agony of despair. I remembered the glitter of the jewelled ring against the white hand. I would have no mercy.

'My dear Giulia—you will allow me to call you Giulia?'

She nodded.

'My dear Giulia, I was a little unhappy at first, I acknowledge, but one gets over those things so quickly—a bottle of wine, and a good sleep: they are like bleeding to a fever.'

'You were unhappy?'

'Naturally; one is always rather put out when one is dismissed. One would prefer to have done the breaking oneself.'

'It was a matter of pride?'

'I am afraid I must confess to it.'

'I did not think so at the time.'

I laughed.

'Oh, that is my excited way of putting things. I frightened you; but it did not really mean anything.'

She did not answer. After a while I said,—

'You know, when one is young one should make the most of one's time. Fidelity is a stupid virtue, unphilosophical and extremely unfashionable.'

'What do you mean?'

'Simply this; you did not particularly love me, and I did not particularly love you.'

'Oh!'

'We had a passing fancy for one another, and that satisfied there was nothing more to keep us together. We should have been very foolish not to break the chain; if you had not done so, I should have. With your woman's intuition, you saw that and forestalled me!'

Again she did not answer.

'Of course, if you had been in love with me, or I with you, it would have been different. But as it was—'

'I see my cousin Violante in the corner there; will you lead me to her?'

I did as she asked, and as she was bowing me my dismissal I said,—

'We have had a very pleasant talk, and we are quite good friends, are we not?'

'Quite!' she said.

I drew a long breath as I left her. I hoped I had hurt; I hoped I had humiliated her. I wished I could have thought of things to say that would have cut her to the heart. I was quite indifferent to her, but when I remembered—I hated her.

I knew everyone in Forli by now, and as I turned away from Giulia I had no lack of friends with whom to talk. The rooms became more crowded every moment. The assembly was the most brilliant that Forli had ever seen; and as the evening wore on the people became more animated; a babel of talk drowned the music, and the chief topic of conversation was the wonderful beauty of Caterina. She was bubbling over with high spirits; no one knew what had happened to make her so joyful, for of late she had suffered a little from the unpopularity of her husband, and a sullen look of anger had replaced the old smiles and graces. But to-night she was herself again. Men were standing round talking to her, and one heard a shout of laughter from them as every now and then she made some witty repartee; and her conversation gained another charm from a sort of soldierly bluntness which people remembered in Francesco Sforza, and which she had inherited. People also spoke of the cordiality of Girolamo towards our Checco; he walked up and down the room with him, arm in arm, talking affectionately; it reminded the onlookers of the time when they had been as brothers together. Caterina occasionally gave them a glance and a little smile of approval; she was evidently well pleased with the reconciliation.

I was making my way through the crowd, watching the various people, giving a word here and there or a nod, and I thought that life was really a very amusing thing. I felt mightily pleased with myself, and I wondered where my good friend Claudia was; I must go and pay her my respects.

'Filippo!'

I turned and saw Scipione Moratini standing by his sister, with a number of gentlemen and ladies, most of them known to me.

'Why are you smiling so contentedly?' he said. 'You look as if you had lost a pebble and found a diamond in its place.'

'Perhaps I have; who knows?'

At that moment I saw Ercole Piacentini enter the room with his wife; I wondered why they were so late. Claudia was at once seized upon by one of her admirers, and, leaving her husband, sauntered off on the proffered arm. Ercole came up the room on his way to the Count. His grim visage was contorted into an expression of amiability, which sat on him with an ill grace.

'This is indeed a day of rejoicing,' I said; 'even the wicked ogre is trying to look pleasant.'

Giulia gave a little silvery laugh. I thought it forced.

'You have a forgiving spirit, dear friend,' she said, accenting the last word in recollection of what I had said to her. 'A truly Christian disposition!'

'Why?' I asked, smiling.

'I admire the way in which you have forgiven Ercole for the insults he has offered you; one does not often find a gentleman who so charitably turns his other cheek to the smiter!'

I laughed within myself; she was trying to be even with me. I was glad to see that my darts had taken good effect. Scipione interposed, for what his sister had said was sufficiently bitter.

'Nonsense, Giulia!' he said. 'You know Filippo is the last man to forgive his enemies until the breath is well out of their bodies; but circumstances—'

Giulia pursed up her lips into an expression of contempt.

'Circumstances. I was surprised, because I remembered the vigour with which Messer Filippo had vowed to revenge himself.'

'Oh, but Messer Filippo considers that he has revenged himself very effectively,' I said.

'How?'

'There are more ways of satisfying one's honour than by cutting a hole in a person's chest.'

'What do you mean, Filippo?' said Scipione.

'Did you not see as he passed?'

'Ercole? What?'

'Did you not see the adornment of his noble head, the elegant pair of horns?'

They looked at me, not quite understanding; then I caught sight of Claudia, who was standing close to us.

'Ah, I see the diamond I have found in place of the pebble I have lost. I pray you excuse me.'

Then as they saw me walk towards Claudia they understood, and I heard a burst of laughter. I took my lady's hand, and bowing deeply, kissed it with the greatest fervour. I glanced at Giulia from the corner of my eyes and saw her looking down on the ground, with a deep blush of anger on her face. My heart leapt for joy to think that I had returned something of the agony she had caused me.

The evening grew late and the guests began to go. Checco, as he passed me, asked,—

'Are you ready?'

'Yes!' I said, accompanying him to Girolamo and the Countess to take our leave.

'You are very unkind, Checco,' said the Countess. 'You have not come near me the whole evening.'

'You have been so occupied,' he answered.

'But I am not now,' she replied, smiling.

'The moment I saw you free I came to you.'

'To say good-bye.'

'It is very late.'

'No, surely; sit down and talk to me.'

Checco did as he was bid, and I, seeing he meant to stay longer, sauntered off again in search of friends. The conversation between Checco and the Countess was rather hindered by the continual leave-takings, as the people began to go away rapidly, in groups. I sat myself down in a window with Matteo, and we began comparing notes of our evening; he told me of a new love to whom he had discovered his passion for the first time.

'Fair wind, foul wind?' I asked, laughing.

'She pretended to be very angry,' he said, 'but she allowed me to see that if the worst came to the worst she would not permit me to break my heart.'

I looked out into the room and found that everyone had gone, except Ercole Piacentini, who was talking to the Count in undertones.

'I am getting so sleepy,' said Matteo. We went forward to the Countess, who said, as she saw us come,—

'Go away, Matteo! I will not have you drag Checco away yet; we have been trying to talk to one another for the last half-hour, and now that we have the chance at last I refuse to be disturbed.'

'I would not for worlds rob Checco of such pleasure,' said Matteo; adding to me, as we retired to our window, 'What a nuisance having to wait for one's cousin while a pretty woman is flirting with him!'

'You have me to talk to—what more can you want!'

'I don't want to talk to you at all,' he answered, laughing.

Girolamo was still with Ercole. His mobile eyes were moving over the room, hardly ever resting on Ercole's face, but sometimes on us, more often on Checco. I wondered whether he was jealous.

At last Checco got up and said Good-night. Then Girolamo came forward.

'You are not going yet,' he said. 'I want to speak with you on the subject of those taxes.'

It was the first time he had mentioned them.

'It is getting so late,' said Checco, 'and these good gentlemen are tired.'

'They can go home. Really, it is very urgent.'

Checco hesitated, and looked at us.

'We will wait for you,' said Matteo.

Girolamo's eyes moved about here and there, never resting a moment, from Checco to me, from me to Matteo, and on to his wife, and then on again, with extraordinary rapidity—it was quite terrifying.

'One would think you were afraid of leaving Checco in our hands,' said the Countess, smiling.

'No,' returned Matteo; 'but I look forward to having some of your attention now that Checco is otherwise occupied. Will you let me languish?'

She laughed, and a rapid glance passed between her and the Count.

'I shall be only too pleased,' she said, 'come and sit by me, one on each side.'

The Count turned to Ercole.

'Well, good-night, my friend,' he said. 'Good-night!'

Ercole left us, and Girolamo, taking Checco's arm, walked up and down the room, speaking. The Countess and Matteo commenced a gay conversation. Although I was close to them I was left alone, and I watched the Count. His eyes fascinated me, moving ceaselessly. What could be behind them? What could be the man's thoughts that his eyes should never rest? They enveloped the person they looked at—his head, every feature of his face, his body, his clothes; one imagined there was no detail they had not caught; it was as if they ate into the very soul of the man.

The two men tramped up and down, talking earnestly; I wondered what they were saying. At last Girolamo stopped.

'Ah, well, I must have mercy on you; I shall tire you to death. And you know I do not wish to do anything to harm you.'

Checco smiled.

'Whatever difficulty there has been between us, Checco, you know that there has never on my part been any ill-feeling towards you. I have always had for you a very sincere and affectionate friendship.'

And as he said the words an extraordinary change came over him. The eyes, the mobile eyes, stopped still at last; for the first time I saw them perfectly steady, motionless, like glass; they looked fixedly into Checco's eyes, without winking, and their immobility was as strange as their perpetual movement, and to me it was more terrifying. It was as if Girolamo was trying to see his own image in Checco's soul.

We bade them farewell, and together issued out into the silence of the night; and I felt that behind us the motionless eyes, like glass, were following us into the darkness.