Part 54 (2/2)

In cottage or in palace, being still Beyond your fortunes, you are still the king Of courtesy and liberality.

COUNT.

I trust I still maintain my courtesy; My liberality perforce is dead Thro' lack of means of giving.

LADY GIOVANNA.

Yet I come To ask a gift. [_Moves toward him a little_.

COUNT.

It will be hard, I fear, To find one shock upon the field when all The harvest has been carried.

LADY GIOVANNA.

But my boy-- (_Aside_.) No, no! not yet--I cannot!

COUNT.

Ay, how is he, That bright inheritor of your eyes--your boy?

LADY GIOVANNA.

Alas, my Lord Federigo, he hath fallen Into a sickness, and it troubles me.

COUNT.

Sick! is it so? why, when he came last year To see me hawking, he was well enough: And then I taught him all our hawking-phrases.

LADY GIOVANNA.

Oh yes, and once you let him fly your falcon.

COUNT.

How charm'd he was! what wonder?--A gallant boy, A n.o.ble bird, each perfect of the breed.

LADY GIOVANNA (_sinks in chair_).

What do you rate her at?

COUNT.

My bird? a hundred Gold pieces once were offer'd by the Duke.

I had no heart to part with her for money.

LADY GIOVANNA.

No, not for money.

[COUNT _turns away and sighs_.

Wherefore do you sigh?

COUNT.

I have lost a friend of late.

LADY GIOVANNA.

I could sigh with you For fear of losing more than friend, a son; And if he leave me--all the rest of life-- That wither'd wreath were of more worth to me.

[_Looking at wreath on wall_.

COUNT.

That wither'd wreath is of more worth to me Than all the blossom, all the leaf of this New-wakening year. [_Goes and takes down wreath_.

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