At any rate, it would be nearly a year before the Father came again,
and in the mean time she would not risk writing about it. The
treasure was as safe in Saint Catharine's keeping as it had been all
these fourteen years; it should still lie hidden there. When Ramona
went away with Alessandro, she would write to Father
Salvierderra, simply stating the facts in her own way, and telling
him that all further questions must wait for decision until they met.
And so she plotted and planned, and mapped out the future in her
tireless weaving brain, till she was somewhat soothed for the
partial failure of her plans.
There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. It
has an ingenious system of its own, of reprisals, -- a system so
ingenious that the defeat must be sore indeed, after which it cannot
still find some booty to bring off! And even greater than this
ingenuity at reprisals is its capacity for self-deception. In this
regard, it outdoes vanity a thousandfold. Wounded vanity knows
when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all
disguises thrown away.
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