"Didst thou urge him to flaunt me with this?" he asked.
"Flaunt thee?" said Valentine. "How should I know a toy like that could rouse such fury?"
The Duke looked at her keenly, and crushed the bracelet together in his hand.
"As I say, thou darest me far because thou art worth something to my plans--but I have the power, and I keep it."
She was silent, and he turned to pass back into his own room. But at the same moment Giannotto spoke. He had entered unobserved, and drew near his master with an obsequious movement.
"I will see no one! Did I not say so? Take care, Giannotto, lest I see _thee_ too often."
The secretary paled, but kept his composure. He had learned that to shrink before Visconti only served to arouse him the more.
"I would merely say, my lord," he remarked, "Alberic da Salluzzo awaits further orders."
"Hath he found the Count?" flashed Visconti.
"My lord, no; nor trace of him, unless these parchments be one."
Giannotto, bowing low, handed Visconti a packet. His head was bent, his eyes downcast, and the smile that flickered over his thin lips unseen.
"This, my lord, was brought in by one of Alberic's men--found an hour since outside the gates of Count Conrad's villa."
It was sealed, and inscribed with the Visconti's name.
Visconti seized it, and Giannotto, stepping back, watched furtively his furious face.
Gian looked at the packet. There was no attempt to disguise the writing. It was the same as that upon the parchment Valentine had given him with its brief threat: "Della Scala lives," and the seal of it was the Ladder of the Scaligeri. Long Visconti fingered it in silence, then remembering he was not alone, glanced wrathfully up to see that Valentine was watching him with a faint smile of scorn, and that Giannotto, for all his downcast head, waited with eyes keen with expectation. But Visconti curbed himself. To have the mastery of others he must keep the mastery of himself.
"Giannotto," he said, and the secretary started as if a whip had touched him, "thou wilt see to it that Da Salluzzo searches Milan and all Lombardy--that he spares neither treasure nor blood--and that he brings to me dead, or living, Count Conrad von Schulembourg, and the writer of these parchments."