“Try to calm yourself a little, Romola,” he said, leaning in the easiest attitude possible against a pedestal under the bust of a grim old Roman. Not that he was inwardly easy: his heart palpitated with a moral dread, against which no chain-armour could be found. He had locked in his wife’s anger and scorn, but he had been obliged to lock himself in with it; and his blood did not rise with contest—his olive cheek was perceptibly paled.
Romola had paused and turned her eyes on him as she saw him take his stand and lodge the key in his scarsella.
Her eyes were flashing, and her whole frame seemed to be possessed by impetuous force that wanted to leap out in some deed.
All the crushing pain of disappointment in her husband, which had made the strongest part of her consciousness a few minutes before, was annihilated by the vehemence of her indignation.
She could not care in this moment that the man she was despising as he leaned there in his loathsome beauty—she could not care that he was her husband; she could only feel that she despised him.
The pride and fierceness of the old Bardo blood had been thoroughly awaked in her for the first time.
“Try at least to understand the fact,” said Tito, “and do not seek to take futile steps which may be fatal. It is of no use for you to go to your godfather. Messer Bernardo cannot reverse what I have done. Only sit down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite yourself, to make known to any third person what passes between us in private.”
Tito knew that he had touched the right fibre there. But she did not sit down; she was too unconscious of her body voluntarily to change her attitude.