"Tut! Don't tell me! Because he has some respect for himself and keeps
his own counsel you are simple enough to think he will not be offended."
The old lady's voice was dying down to a choking whisper, but she went
on without a pause.
"If you've no thought for yourself, you might have some for me. You are
young, and anything may come to you, but I'm old and I'm tied down to
this mattress, and what is to happen if the Baron takes offence? The
income he allows us from your father's estates is under his own control
still. He can cut it off at any moment, and if he does, what is to
become of me?"
Roma's bosom was swelling under her heavy breathing, her heart was
beating violently and her head was dizzy. All the bitterness of the
evening was boiling in her throat, and it burst out at length in a
flood.
"So that is all your moral protestations come to, is it?" she said.
"Because the Baron is necessary to you and you cannot exist without him,
you expect me to buy and sell myself according to your necessities."
"Roma! What are you saying? Aren't you ashamed...."
"Aren't you ashamed? You've been trying to throw me into the arms of
the Baron, and you haven't cared what would happen so long as I kept up
appearances."
"Oh, dear! I see what it is. You want to be the death of me! You will,
too, before you've done. Natalina! Where is...."
"More than that, you've poisoned my mind against my father, and because
I couldn't remember him, you've brought me up to think of him as selfish
and vain and indifferent to his own daughter. But my father wasn't that
kind of man at all."
"Who told you that, miss?"
"Never mind who told me. My father was a saint and a martyr, and a great
man, and he loved me with all his heart and soul."
"Oh, my head! My poor head!... A martyr indeed! A socialist, a
republican, a rebel, an anarchist, you mean!"
"Never mind what his politics were. He was my father--that is
enough--and you had no right to make me think ill of him, whatever the
world might do."
Roma was superb at that moment, with her head thrown back, her eyes
flaming, and her magnificent figure swelling and heaving under her
clinging gown.
"You'll kill me, I tell you. The cognac ... Natalina...." cried the
Countess, but Roma was gone.