第37章

But his body did not change; his smile was still affectionate, and Valentine confided to him the great secret that Silvia had now promised to run away with him. "In the pocket of this cloak,"said Valentine, "I have a silken rope ladder, with hooks which will clasp the window-bar of her room."Proteus knew the reason why Silvia and her lover were bent on flight. The Duke intended her to wed Sir Thurio, a gentlemanly noodle for whom she did not care a straw.

Proteus thought that if he could get rid of Valentine he might make Silvia fond of him, especially if the Duke insisted on her enduring Sir Thurio's tiresome chatter. He therefore went to the Duke, and said, "Duty before friendship! It grieves me to thwart my friend Valentine, but your Grace should know that he intends to-night to elope with your Grace's daughter." He begged the Duke not to tell Valentine the giver of this information, and the Duke assured him that his name would not be divulged.

Early that evening the Duke summoned Valentine, who came to him wearing a large cloak with a bulging pocket.

"You know," said the Duke, "my desire to marry my daughter to Sir Thurio?""I do," replied Valentine. "He is virtuous and generous, as befits a man so honored in your Grace's thoughts.""Nevertheless she dislikes him," said the Duke. "She is a peevish, proud, disobedient girl, and I should be sorry to leave her a penny. I intend, therefore, to marry again."Valentine bowed.

"I hardly know how the young people of to-day make love," continued the Duke, "and I thought that you would be just the man to teach me how to win the lady of my choice.""Jewels have been known to plead rather well," said Valentine.

"I have tried them," said the Duke.

"The habit of liking the giver may grow if your Grace gives her some more.""The chief difficulty," pursued the Duke, "is this. The lady is promised to a young gentleman, and it is hard to have a word with her. She is, in fact, locked up.""Then your Grace should propose an elopement," said Valentine.

"Try a rope ladder."

"But how should I carry it?" asked the Duke.

"A rope ladder is light," said Valentine; "You can carry it in a cloak.""Like yours?"

"Yes, your Grace."

"Then yours will do. Kindly lend it to me."

Valentine had talked himself into a trap. He could not refuse to lend his cloak, and when the Duke had donned it, his Grace drew from the pocket a sealed missive addressed to Silvia. He coolly opened it, and read these words: "Silvia, you shall be free to-night.""Indeed," he said, "and here's the rope ladder. Prettily contrived, but not perfectly. I give you, sir, a day to leave my dominions.

If you are in Milan by this time to-morrow, you die."Poor Valentine was saddened to the core. "Unless I look on Silvia in the day," he said, "there is no day for me to look upon."Before he went he took farewell of Proteus, who proved a hypocrite of the first order. "Hope is a lover's staff," said Valentine's betrayer; "walk hence with that."After leaving Milan, Valentine and his servant wandered into a forest near Mantua where the great poet Virgil lived. In the forest, however, the poets (if any) were brigands, who bade the travelers stand. They obeyed, and Valentine made so good an impression upon his captors that they offered him his life on condition that he became their captain.

"I accept," said Valentine, "provided you release my servant, and are not violent to women or the poor."The reply was worthy of Virgil, and Valentine became a brigand chief.

We return now to Julia, who found Verona too dull to live in since Proteus had gone. She begged her maid Lucetta to devise a way by which she could see him. "Better wait for him to return," said Lucetta, and she talked so sensibly that Julia saw it was idle to hope that Lucetta would bear the blame of any rash and interesting adventure. Julia therefore said that she intended to go to Milan and dressed like a page.

"You must cut off your hair then," said Lucetta, who thought that at this announcement Julia would immediately abandon her scheme.

"I shall knot it up," was the disappointing rejoinder.

Lucetta then tried to make the scheme seem foolish to Julia, but Julia had made up her mind and was not to be put off by ridicule;and when her toilet was completed, she looked as comely a page as one could wish to see.

Julia assumed the male name Sebastian, and arrived in Milan in time to hear music being performed outside the Duke's palace.

"They are serenading the Lady Silvia," said a man to her.

Suddenly she heard a voice lifted in song, and she knew that voice.

It was the voice of Proteus. But what was he singing?

"Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heaven such grace did lend her That she might admired be."Julia tried not to hear the rest, but these two lines somehow thundered into her mind--"Then to Silvia let us sing;

She excels each mortal thing."

Then Proteus thought Silvia excelled Julia; and, since he sang so beautifully for all the world to hear, it seemed that he was not only false to Julia, but had forgotten her. Yet Julia still loved him. She even went to him, and asked to be his page, and Proteus engaged her.

One day, he handed to her the ring which she had given him, and said, "Sebastian, take that to the Lady Silvia, and say that Ishould like the picture of her she promised me."Silvia had promised the picture, but she disliked Proteus. She was obliged to talk to him because he was high in the favor of her father, who thought he pleaded with her on behalf of Sir Thurio. Silvia had learned from Valentine that Proteus was pledged to a sweetheart in Verona; and when he said tender things to her, she felt that he was disloyal in friendship as well as love.

Julia bore the ring to Silvia, but Silvia said, "I will not wrong the woman who gave it him by wearing it.""She thanks you," said Julia.

"You know her, then?" said Silvia, and Julia spoke so tenderly of herself that Silvia wished that Sebastian would marry Julia.