Half an hour later she was with Don Teodoro, busy about her usual occupations and plans.  But she was absent-minded, and matters did not go well.  She left him earlier than usual and shut herself up in her own room.  She had not been there a quarter of an hour, however, before she felt stifled and oppressed by the close solitude, and she came out again and climbed to the top of the dungeon tower, where the little plot of cabbages had been converted into a tiny flower garden, and the roses were all in bloom.

With the rising of her pity had come the desire to see Gianluca and talk with him.  She could not tell why she wished it so much, after having felt so horribly indifferent at first, but the wish was there, and like all her wishes, now, it must be satisfied without delay.  She was supremely powerful in her little mountain town, and on the whole she was using her power very wisely.  But her dominant character was rapidly growing despotic, and it irritated her strangely to want anything which she could not have.  She had almost forgotten that society had any general claims upon people who chance to belong to it, and the sudden recollection that if she went down to Naples, she could not go and see Gianluca, even under his father’s and mother’s roof, and talk with him if she pleased, was indescribably offensive to her over-grown sense of independence.  Nor could she invite herself to Avellino to pay a visit to Gianluca’s mother.  She understood enough of the customs of the world with which she had really lived so little, to know that such a thing was impossible.

If she could not see him in Naples and could not go to see him at his father’s place, he must come to Muro.  It flashed upon her that she had a right to ask the whole Della Spina family to spend a week with her if she chose.  They might think it extraordinary if they pleased—­it would be an invitation, after all, and the worst that could happen would be that the old Duchessa might refuse it.  But Veronica never anticipated refusals.

As for Gianluca, if he were well enough to be taken to Avellino, he could be brought to Muro.  A journey by carriage was no more tiring than one by railway, and the change and excitement would perhaps do him good.  The more she thought of the possibility of her plan as compared with the impracticable nature of any other which suggested itself, the more she looked forward with pleasure to seeing him—­and the more clearly it seemed to her an act of kindness to give him an opportunity of seeing her.

And between her reflexions, strengthening her intention and hastening her action, there returned the real and deep sorrow she felt at the thought of losing her best friend, and the genuine pity she now felt for him, apart from the selfish consideration which had come first.