She stammered and stopped, with a sudden consciousness of what she was
doing.
"What a fool I am!" she said, leaping to her feet. "What fresh story can
you tell him that he is likely to believe?"
"I can tell him that, according to the law of nature and of reason, you
belong to me," said the Baron.
"Very well! It will be your word against mine, will it not? Tell him,
and he will fling your insult in your face."
The Baron rose and began to walk about the room, and there were some
moments in which nothing could be heard but the slight creaking of his
patent-leather boots. Then he said: "In that case I should be compelled to challenge him."
"Challenge him!" She repeated the words with scorn. "Is it likely? Do
you forget that duelling is a crime, that you are a Minister, that you
would have to resign, and expose yourself to penalties?"
"If a man insults me grievously in my affections and my honour, I will
challenge him," said the Baron.
"But he will not fight--it would be contrary to his principles," said
Roma.
"In that event he will never be able to lift his head in Italy again.
But make no mistake on that point, my child. The man who is told that
the woman he is going to marry is secretly the wife of another must
either believe it or he must not. If he believes it, he casts her off
for ever. If he does not believe it, he fights for her name and his own
honour. If he does neither, he is not a man."
Roma had returned to the stool, and was resting her elbows on her knees
and gazing into the fire.
"Have you thought of that?" said the Baron. "If the man fights a duel,
it will be in defence of what you have told him. In the blindness of his
belief in your word he will be ready to risk his life for it. Are you
going to stand by and see him fight for a lie?"
Roma hid her face in her hands.
"Say he is wounded--it will be for a lie! Say he wounds his
adversary--that will be for a lie too! Say that David Rossi kills
me--what then? He must fly from Italy, and his career is at an end. If
he is alone, he is a miserable exile who has earned what he may not
enjoy. If you are with him, you are both miserable, for a lie stands
between you. Every hour of your life is poisoned by the secret you
cannot share with him. You are afraid of blurting it out in your sleep.
At last you go to him and confess everything. What then? The idol he
worshipped has turned to clay. What he thought an act of retribution is
a crime. The dead man had told the truth, and he committed murder on the
word of a woman who was a deceiver--a drab."