for several days. She
shunned him openly. Her carriage moved off when he advanced to meet her
at the parade, or review of arms; and she did not scruple to speak in
public with Major Nagen, in the manner of those who have begun to speak
together in private. The offender received his punishment gracefully, as
men will who have been taught that it flatters them. He refused every
challenge. From Carlo Ammiani there came not a word.

It would have been a deadly lull to any fiery temperament engaged in
plotting to destroy a victim, but Anna had the patience of hatred--that
absolute malignity which can measure its exultation rather by the
gathering of its power to harm than by striking. She could lay it aside,
or sink it to the bottom of her emotions, at will, when circumstances
appeared against it. And she could do this without fretful regrets,
without looking to the future. The spirit of her hatred extracted its own
nourishment from things, like an organized creature. When foiled she
became passive, and she enjoyed--forced herself compliantly to enjoy--her
redoubled energy of hatred voluptuously, if ever a turn in events made
wreck of her scheming. She hated Vittoria for many reasons, all of them
vague within her bosom because the source of them was indefinite and lay
in the fact of her having come into collision with an opposing nature,
whose rivalry was no visible rivalry, whose triumph was an ignorance of
scorn--a woman who attracted all men, who scattered injuries with
insolent artlessness, who never appealed to forgiveness, and was a
low-born woman daring to be proud. By repute Anna was implacable, but she
had, and knew she had, the capacity for magnanimity of a certain kind;
and her knowledge of the existence of this unsuspected fund within her
justified in some degree her reckless efforts to pull her enemy down on
her knees. It seemed doubly right that she should force Vittoria to
penitence, as being good for the woman, and an end that exonerated her
own private sins committed to effect it.

Yet she did not look clearly forward to the day of Vittoria's imploring
for mercy. She had too many vexations to endure: she was an insufficient
schemer, and was too frequently thwarted to enjoy that ulterior prospect.
Her only servile instruments were Major Nagen, and Irma, who came to her
from the Villa Ricciardi, hot to do her rival any deadly injury; but
though willing to attempt much, these were apparently able to perform
li