Moreover, her sister Clementina had told her that there was only one
way to treat the world, and that was to leave it with the contempt it
deserved; and she had heard her brother tell his wife in one of his
miserable fits of weakly brutal anger that marriage was hell, and
nothing else; to which the young princess had coldly replied that he
was only where he deserved to be. Sabina had not been brought up with
the traditional pious and proper views about matrimony, and if she did
not think even worse of it, the merit was due to her own nature, in
which there was much good and hardly any real evil.
But she could not escape from a little inherited and acquired cynicism
either, and while Malipieri chatted quietly during luncheon, an
explanation of the whole matter occurred to her which was not pleasant
to contemplate. The story about the treasure might or might not be
true, but he believed in it, and so did Volterra. The Baron was
therefore employing him to discover the prize. But Malipieri showed
plainly that he wished her to possess it, if it were ever found, and
perhaps he meant it to be her dowry, in which case it would come into
his own hands if he could marry her. This was ingenious, if it was
nothing else, and though Sabina felt that there was something mean
about it, she resented the idea that he should expect her to think him
a model of generosity when she hardly knew him.
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