' Gennaro was
transported to the seventh heaven of pride. I was not a marquise, I
was not born a Casteran, and he forgot me in a day. I then gave myself
the savage pleasure of probing that nature to the bottom. Certain of
the result, I wanted to see the twistings and turnings Conti would
perform. My dear child, I saw in one week actual horrors of sham
sentiment, infamous buffooneries of feeling. I will not tell you about
them; you shall see the man here in a day or two. He now knows that I
know him, and he hates me accordingly. If he could stab me with safety
to himself I shouldn't be alive two seconds. I have never said one
word of all this to Beatrix. The last and constant insult Geranno
offers me is to suppose that I am capable of communicating my sad
knowledge of him to her; but he has no belief in the good feeling of
any human being. Even now he is playing a part with me; he is posing
as a man who is wretched at having left me. You will find what I may
call the most penetrating cordiality about him; he is winning; he is
chivalrous. To him, all women are madonnas.
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