Porzia

You shall hear! It must be told.
Yes, yes!.. (Struggling to say it) …
And with no leavening delay of words.
We … I … You must be gone from here at once;
At once – for there is peril.

Rizzio.
Pah-ho! peril?
Now, Scylla and the Sibyl and Charybdis!
What megrim have you had?

Bianca.
None – for doubting;
Or any, it matters not, if you will go,
And quickly, trusting reason – as you boast to;
For I have heard —

Rizzio.
Have heard what and from whom?

[Again looks around.

Bianca.
There was one here who said Monsignor Querio
Knows of your excommunicant delight
In books that are forbid —
And … of your heresies!

Porzia (in quick dismay).
The Inquisition!
You mean – he may be sought by it and seized,
Held in the trammels of it for a truth
That …! Do you mean, Bianca, Osio,
That now, at any hour – ?.. Oh, he must go!

[Hears noise at gate.

And quickly! In, Rizzio, in, for they – !

[The gate opens and Matteo entering stops amazed and alarmed.

Rizzio (with laughing relief).
Now, now, do you not see your apprehension!
Is Matteo the Inquisition! Is
He then the prison that has come to seize me?
Fie, fie, Bianca, with your fears that mar
Again the bridal beauty of this hour,
And crowd with quiverings the bliss of it!
No more of them! – (to dancers) Hither! and wind your maze!
Again take up the dance!

Porzia.
No, Rizzio, no!
For now delight would die under our feet,
And we but trample on it! No! Dismiss them
Back now to Capri!..
More than the woman fear within me warns it.
For you have been o'er bold – not vainly, nay,
For truth, I know, must dare – but there may be
More in this than you think.

Rizzio.