You understand that, do you not?
And you understand that there is nothing you would not do for a friend?
Not out of mere obligation, because your friend has done much for you, but just for friendship--love, if you choose to call it so.

I have heard people speak eloquently of friendship--so have you perhaps.

And we both understand what it means, though many do not.

That is why I speak as I do, and if I do not speak well, you must forgive me, and feel the meaning I cannot express to your ears.

Gianluca loves you, Donna Veronica, as men very rarely love women, so immensely, so strongly, that his love is burning up his life in him--and it has all been kept from you for some reason or other, while your relations are doing their best to make you marry Bosio Macomer, who can no more be compared with Gianluca della Spina than--" He checked himself, for he felt that his tone was contemptuous, and remembered that Veronica might perhaps like Bosio.