"My lord, you are hurting me!"

"And are you not hurting me?" he snarled. "What is a pinched arm when
compared with such wounds as your eyes are dealing me? Are you not----"

She had twisted from his grasp, and in a bound she had reached the
window-door through which her attendants had passed.

"Valentina!" he cried, as he sprang after her, and it was more like the
growl of a beast than the cry of a lover. He caught her, and with scant
ceremony he dragged her back into the room.

At this, her latent loathing, contempt and indignation rose up in arms.
Never had she heard tell of a woman of her rank being used in this
fashion. She abhorred him, yet she had spared him the humiliation of
hearing it from her lips, intending to fight for her liberty with her
uncle. But now, since he handled her as though she had been a serving-
wench; since he appeared to know nothing of the deference due to her,
nothing of the delicacies of people well-born and well-bred, she would
endure his odious love-making no further. Since he elected to pursue his
wooing like a clown, the high-spirited daughter of Urbino promised
herself that in like fashion would she deal with him.

Swinging herself free from his grasp a second time, she caught him a
stinging buffet on the ducal cheek which--so greatly did it take him by
surprise--all but sent him sprawling.

"Madonna!" he panted. "This indignity to me!"