At present his vanity, too, was wounded painfully.

There was, besides, in Lygia's opposition and resistance, and in her flight itself, which was to him incomprehensible, a kind of riddle.

In trying to solve this riddle he racked his head terribly.

He felt that Acte had told the truth, and that Lygia was not indifferent.

But if this were true, why had she preferred wandering and misery to his love, his tenderness, and a residence in his splendid mansion?
To this question he found no answer, and arrived only at a kind of dim understanding that between him and Lygia, between their ideas, between the world which belonged to him and Petronius, and the world of Lygia and Pomponia, there existed some sort of difference, some kind of misunderstanding as deep as an abyss, which nothing could fill up or make even.