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 me92 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.