It remained for this moment to reveal to me the extent.

Besides, the subtle influence of sex--all unconscious of it as I was--stirred me now to prove my new-found manhood.
"Stay!" I said to Giojoso, and in uttering the command I grew very cold and steady, and my breathing resumed the normal.
He checked in the act of turning away to do my mother's hideous bidding.
"You will give Madonna's order to the grooms, Ser Giojoso, as you have been bidden.

But you will add from me that if there is one amongst them dares to obey it and to lay be it so much as a finger upon Luisina, him will I kill with these two hands." Never was consternation more profound than that which I flung amongst them by those words.

Giojoso fell to trembling; behind him, Rinolfo, the cause of all this garboil, stared with round big eyes; whilst my mother, all a-quiver, clutched at her bosom and looked at me fearfully, but spoke no word.
I smiled upon them, towering there, conscious and glad of my height for the first time in my life.
"Well ?" I demanded of Giojoso.

"For what do you wait?
About it, sir, and do as my mother has commanded you." He turned to her, all bent and grovelling, arms outstretched in ludicrous bewilderment, every line of him beseeching guidance along this path so suddenly grown thorny.
"Ma--madonna!" he stammered.
She swallowed hard, and spoke at last.
"Do you defy my will, Agostino ?" "On the contrary, madam mother, I am enforcing it.