He was visibly excited, and spoke rapidly and even loudly.
"The man was arrested on the frontier--you must have heard of that. He
was coming by the night train on Saturday, and to prevent a possible
disturbance they kept him in Milan until this morning."
Roma continued to stand with her back to the bureau.
"The news was in all the journals yesterday, my dear, and it had a
splendid effect on the opening of the Jubilee. When the King went to
Mass this morning the plot had received its death-blow, and our anxiety
was at an end. To-night the man will arrive in Rome, and within an hour
from now he will be safely locked up in prison."
Every nerve in Roma's body was palpitating, but she did not attempt to
speak.
"It is all your doing, my child--yours, not mine. Your clever brain has
brought it all to pass. 'Leave the man to me,' you said. I left him to
you, and you have accomplished everything."
Roma drew her lips together and tried to control herself.
"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!"