still clouded his
spirits, and the second visit was as constrained and awkward as the
other. When next he came, it was with his wounded vanity in arms
against this humiliating embarrassment. She noticed it, and _he_
noticed that it secretly amused her. She smiled, and all his
self-conscious pride drew back in alarm. Yet he felt himself powerless.
Here, and in her presence, he could not give his feelings vent, he
could barely find a word to say. He suffered in silence, took his
departure, and came again, only to discover that she was playing with
his anguish. If for a moment she had permitted herself to be mastered
by him, all the more intense was the delight she now felt in this
conquest of her conqueror. She treated him as she had learnt how to
treat others, and bore herself towards him with a fascinating,
unapproachable superiority.

Never did captive lion tear at his iron bars as Giuseppe Mansana chafed
when he felt himself caught in this silken mesh of formal courtesy and
playful ceremony. Yet he could not keep away from her. His strength was
exhausted under the strain of frenzied nights and days spent in frantic
struggles that led to no result.

Heavy indeed was the humiliation that had fallen upon him. He could not
bear to hear her speak of another man; he did not venture to utter her
name lest he should betray his misery and expose himself to ridicule.
It was agony to him to watch her in conversation with any one else,
though he could hardly endure to be in her company, lest she should
inflict some slight upon him. Not once but a hundred times a murderous
impulse swept over him. He could have killed his mistress, together
with the rival whom, for the moment, she chose to honour with her
preference, but was forced instead to turn on his heel and depart in
silent fury. Where would it all end? The thought took shape within his
mind that it must lead to madness or to death, or perhaps to both. Yet,
though he felt this, he was powerless to make head against his
infatuation; and for hours at a time he would lie prone and motionless
in futile contemplation of the helplessness that had unnerved him. Why
not perish in some deed of fierce vengeance worthy of his past?
Thoughts like this chased one another through his soul, like
thunder-clouds over a mountain's brow, while he lay there, fettered by
the heavy doom imperious Nature had cast upon him.

In this frame of mind he received a formal invitation from the
princes