"But what things you have gone through in order to achieve your purpose! Slights, slurs, insults! No wonder the man was taken in by it. Society itself was taken in. And I—yes, I myself—was almost deceived."
"Shall it be now?" thought Roma. The Baron was on the hearthrug directly facing her.
"But you knew what you were doing, my dear. It was all a part of your scheme. You drew the man on. In due time he delivered himself up to you. He surrendered every secret of his soul. And when your great hour came you were ready. You met it as you had always intended. 'At the top of his hopes he shall fall,' you said."
Roma's heart was beating as if it would burst its bounds.
"He has fallen. Thanks to you, this enemy of civil society, this slanderer of women, is down. Then the Pope too! And the confession to the Reverend Father! Who but a woman could have thought of a thing like that?—-making your denunciation so defensible, so pardonable, so plausible, so inevitable! What skill! What patience! What diplomacy! And what will and nerve too! Who shall say now that women are incapable of great things?"
The Baron had thrown open his overcoat, revealing the broad expanse of his shirt-front, crossed by the glittering collar of the Annunziata, and was promenading the hearthrug without a thought of his peril.
"The journals of half Europe will have accounts of the failure of the 'Great Plot.' There was another plot, my dear, which did not fail. Europe will hear of that also, and by to-morrow morning the world will know what a woman may do to punish the man who traduces and degrades her!"
"Why don't I do it?" thought Roma. She was fingering the revolver on the bureau behind her, and breathing fast and audibly.
"You shall have everything back, my dear. Carriages, jewellery, apartments, exactly as you parted with them. I have kept all under my own control, and in a single day you can be reinstated."
Roma's palpitating heart was hurting her.