ersation which sometimes takes place between an Italian
lady and her maid--and, indeed, if the truth be told, between maids and
their mistresses in most parts of the world.

But the doubt thrust itself forward now. Beatrice was quick to doubt at
all times. She was also capricious and changeable about matters which
did not affect her deeply, and those that did were few enough. It was
certainly possible that San Miniato, after all, only wanted her money
and that her mother was willing to give it in return for a great name
and a great position. She felt that if the case had been stated to her
from the first in its true light she might have accepted the situation
without illusion, but without disgust. Everybody, her mother said, was
married by arrangement, some for one advantage, some for the sake of
another. After all, San Miniato was better than most of the rest. There
was a certain superiority about him which she would like to see in her
husband, a certain simple elegance, a certain outward dignity, which
pleased her. But when her mother had spoken in her languid way of the
marriage, Beatrice had resented the denial of her free will, and had
answered that she would please herself or not marry at all. The
Marchesa, far too lacking in energy to sustain such a contest, had
contented herself with her favourite expression of horror at her
daughter's unfilial conduct. Now, however, Beatrice felt that if it had
all been arranged for her, she would have been satisfied, but that since
San Miniato had played something very like a comedy, she would refuse to
be duped by it. She was very bitter against him in the first revulsion
of feeling and treated him more hardly in her thoughts than he, perhaps,
deserved.

And there he was, up there by the table, telling her mother of his
success. Her blood rose in her cheeks at the thought and she stamped her
foot upon the rock out of sheer anger at herself, at him, at everything
and everybody. Then she moved on.

Ruggiero was standing at the edge of the water looking out to sea. The
moonlight silvered his white face and fair beard and accentuated the
sharp black line where his sailor's cap crossed his forehead. Wild and
angry emotions chased each other from his heart to his brain and back
again, firing his overwrought nerves and heated blood, as the flame runs
along a train of powder. He heard a light step behind him and turned
suddenly. Beatrice was close upon him.

"Is that you, Ruggier