"Of course. You are going to marry San Miniato, and we have the best
excuse in the world for going to Paris to see about your trousseau."

"I will not marry San Miniato," said Beatrice. "I have made up my mind
that I will not."

The Marchesa started slightly as she took her cigarette from her lips,
and turned her head slowly so that she could look into Beatrice's eyes.

"You are engaged to marry him," she said slowly. "You cannot break your
word. You know what that means. Indeed, you are quite mad!"

"Engaged? I? I never gave my word! It is not true!" The blood rose, in
Beatrice's face and then sank suddenly away.

"What is this comedy?" asked the Marchesa, raising her brows. For the
first time in many years she was almost angry.

"Ah! If you ask me that, I will tell you. I will tell you everything and
you know that I speak the truth to you as I do to everybody--"

"Except to San Miniato when you tell him you love him," interrupted the
Marchesa.

Beatrice blushed again, with anger this time.

"Yes," she said, after a short pause, "it is quite true that I said I
loved him, and for one moment I meant it. But I made a mistake. I am
sorry, and I will tell him so. But I will tell him other things, too. I
will tell him that I saw through his acting before we left Tragara last
night, and that I will never forgive him for the part he played. You
know as well as I that it was all a play, from beginning to end. I liked
him better than the others because I thought him more manly, more
honest, more dignified. But I have changed my mind. I see the whole
truth now, every detail of it. He planned it all, and he did it very
well--probably he planned it the night before last, out here with you,
while I was playing waltzes. You could not make me marry him, and he got
leave of you to speak to me. Do you think I do not understand it all?
Would you have let me go away last night and sit with him on the rocks,
out of your hearing, without so much as a remark, unless you had
arranged the matter between you? It is not like you, and I know you
meant it. It was all a plot. He had even been there to study the place,
to see the very point at which the moon would rise, the very place where
he would make me sit, the very spot where your table could stand. He
said to himself that I was a mere girl, that of course no man had ever
made love to me and that between the beauty of the night, my liking for
him, and his well arranged comedy, he m