Aliandra believed that she had done what she had come to do. She had foiled Tebaldo effectually and for ever in any attempt he might make to marry the American heiress. With a glance at the girl's bent head, and at the soft, brown hair that looked so fair in the flecks of sunshine, she turned and left the room as quickly as she had entered it.
Vittoria started as she heard the door close, looked up, and then glanced at the package in her hand. She did not quite remember what she did after that, till she found herself locked into her own room, breaking the violet seals from the brown paper, cutting the string with her nail scissors, tearing the stout paper to pieces with her little hands, her heart beating with horror and her eyes already frightened by the expectation of the knife they were to see. She saw it, a moment later, and then her heart stood still, for she had seen it many times in Tebaldo's room, during that winter, and once she had borrowed it of him to cut a strong cord from a parcel.
Then came the letter, and the long and painful reading of the hideous tale. She spent a terrible half-hour, and then she sat still for a long time, and her face was almost restful. At last she rose, quite calm and decided, and began to dress herself to go out. In a quarter of an hour she was ready, and she went downstairs alone and told the porter to get her a cab.
'Palazzo Saracinesca,' she said to the cabman, 'and drive under the gate!'
She went up the great staircase and asked for Corona. The footman hesitated to say whether the Princess would receive or not. Vittoria fixed her eyes on him and spoke quietly in a tone he understood.
'Be good enough to take me to the Princess's room,' she said. 'The matter is urgent.'
She followed the man through the long succession of state drawing-rooms till he knocked at a side door, and immediately opened it inwards.
Corona was at her table writing a note. She looked up quickly, bending her brows, and rose rather formally. She had always liked Vittoria for herself, but she had good cause to hate her name, and she had avoided the possibility of meeting the lonely girl of late. Vittoria went forward and spoke first.
'I should not have come to you for a small matter,' she said. 'But I have come to make a reparation.'