Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/84

Rh should be fairly baited and hooked. "He is but a secondary matter—can she be bought?"

"No!" Into the calm immutability of her betrayer's voice there glided a half sullen, half bitter, yet withal admiring savageness; he was recalling to memory the imperial disdain with which she had swept from him the night before, the indifference with which she had disregarded alike his entreaties and his threats. "What could be offered her that could eclipse what she has? She has wealth—she has dominion—she has a power wider than yours!" The last words were almost bluntly uttered; for the moment he felt a thrill of triumph in flinging the splendour and the influence of the woman by whom he had been rejected in the teeth of even the purples and the pomps of Eternal Rome. The dusky red glowed slightly brighter in Monsignore's cheek, a flush of anger; he waved his delicate white hand with an expressive action.

"While they last! But if she had choice between retaining these—under our pleasure—and losing them—say in the casemates of the Capuano yonder; what then, my son? She would yield?" "She would never yield."

He answered calmly, still with that restrained