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ask her what it was that induced her to write that letter. With these
resolutions, more honourable than judicious or effectual, she remained
the next day listening to Lothario, who pressed his suit so strenuously
that Camilla's firmness began to waver, and her virtue had enough to do
to come to the rescue of her eyes and keep them from showing signs of a
certain tender compassion which the tears and appeals of Lothario had
awakened in her bosom. Lothario observed all this, and it inflamed him
all the more. In short he felt that while Anselmo's absence afforded time
and opportunity he must press the siege of the fortress, and so he
assailed her self-esteem with praises of her beauty, for there is nothing
that more quickly reduces and levels the castle towers of fair women's
vanity than vanity itself upon the tongue of flattery. In fact with the
utmost assiduity he undermined the rock of her purity with such engines
that had Camilla been of brass she must have fallen. He wept, he
entreated, he promised, he flattered, he importuned, he pretended with so
much feeling and apparent sincerity, that he overthrew the virtuous
resolves of Camilla and won the triumph he least expected and most longed