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She described the miserably nervous feebleness of the man with scathing contempt, her tone made evil deeds of his shortcomings, her scorn made his weakness a black crime; her jealous anger fastened upon Francesca Campodonico and tore her honour to shreds and her virtues to rags of abomination; and her flaming pride blazed out in searing hatred and contempt for the coward who had struck her in the face.
Pray inform me that you have received it. "Believe me, Signore, with perfect esteem, "FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO." Griggs read the note twice through to the end, and laid it upon the table. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets, and turned thoughtfully to the window without touching the parcel, of which he had not even untied the black string. So Reanda was dead at last.
He had the intention of going out one evening, in cloak and soft hat, as of old, to dine in his old corner at the Falcone, but he put it off from day to day, feeling no taste for the coarser fare and the rougher drink when the hour came. He often went to see Francesca Campodonico in the middle of the day, at which hour the Roman ladies used to be visible to their more intimate friends.
Cardinal Campodonico was at that time the archbishop of Naples, and he received Don Matteo immediately, for the priest was a man of extraordinarily brilliant gifts and well known to the prelate, who liked him and had caused him to be made a canon of the cathedral not many years earlier.
In those days it was almost the only one of its kind, and was patronized alike by Romans and foreigners. Even Donna Francesca Campodonico went there from time to time for a book on art or an engraving which she and Reanda needed for their work. They occasionally walked all the way from the Palazzetto Borgia to the Piazza di Spagna together in the morning.
It is very simple, and there can be no possible mistake, now." "Yes," said Don Teodoro. "It is very simple." And so it was, for Cardinal Campodonico deserved the reputation he enjoyed of being, in ecclesiastical affairs, a man equal to the most difficult emergencies, in character, in keen discernment, and in prompt action.
But Gloria had the ambition and the right to be received in society on a footing of equality, and no one but Francesca Campodonico could then give her what she wanted. She did not obtain what is commonly called social success, though many people received her and her husband during the following winter. She got admiration in plenty, and she herself believed that it was friendship.
However that might be, no one was responsible for Veronica, but Veronica herself, unless Cardinal Campodonico still had some authority over her, which seemed more than doubtful. The old Duca made him a formal visit, and a formal proposition.
Their cards appeared regularly at the small house in the Macel de' Corvi, but there was always a mystery as to how they got there, for the princesses and the duchesses themselves did not appear, except once or twice when Francesca Campodonico brought one of her friends with her, gently insisting that there should be a proper call.
When, on leaving him, Veronica deposited the traditional and perfunctory kiss upon his sapphire ring, Cardinal Campodonico felt that his late ward had been a match for him at all points, and that after all it was not such a great thing to be a man, if one could not do better than he had done.
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