Each
time he had stifled in his heart this sense of pleasure, which was not
unmixed with selfish, human vanity, and not entirely controlled and
suppressed in submission to the Divine Will. But he had not been able to
tear out its roots. Therefore he stretched out his arms gratefully
to the Professor. But immediately he was assailed by scruples.
His intelligence and his Christian sentiment were in a state of
contradiction. He was aware that he was not liked by the lady who had
married the Professor's son, a naval officer, now in the East; he saw
that his return to Villa Mayda would be displeasing to her, and a source
of discord between her father-in-law and herself. But how could he say
so now, without implying a want of justice and of charity in a person
whom, from the very fact that she was his enemy, he was especially bound
to love? He entreated the Professor to let him go to Sant' Onofrio.
The change was so sudden that it surprised Mayda. He thought a moment,
understood, and then said, knitting his brows:
"Do you wish me never to forgive some one for something?"
Benedetto offered no further opposition.
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