e real question
concerns you much more than it affects him. If you break your promise--"

"There was no promise."

"You told him that you loved him, and you admit it. Under the
circumstances that meant that you were willing to marry him. It meant
nothing else, as you know very well."

"I never thought of it."

"You must think of it now. You know perfectly well that he wished to
marry you and had my consent. I have spoken to you several times about
it and you refused to have him, saying that you meant to exercise your
own free will. You had an opportunity of exercising it last night. You
told him clearly that you loved him, and that could only mean that your
opposition was gone and that you would marry him. You know what you
will be called now, if you refuse to keep your engagement."

Beatrice grew slowly pale. Her mother had, for once, a remarkably direct
and clear way of putting the matter, and the young girl began to waver.
If her mother succeeded in proving to her that she had really bound
herself, she would submit. It is not easy to convey to the foreign mind
generally the enormous importance which is attached in Italy to a
distinct promise of marriage. It indeed almost amounts, morally
speaking, to marriage itself, and the breaking of it is looked upon
socially almost as an act of infidelity to the marriage bond. A young
girl who refuses to keep her engagement is called a civetta--an
owlet--probably because owlets are used as a decoy all over the country
in snaring and shooting all small birds. Be that as it may, the term is
a bitter reproach, it sticks to her who has earned it and often ruins
her whole life. That is what the Marchesa meant when she told Beatrice
that she knew what the world would call her, and the threat had weight.

The young girl rose from her seat and began to walk to and fro on the
terrace, her head bent, her hands clasped together. The Marchesa slowly
puffed at her cigarette and watched her daughter with half-closed eyes.

"I never meant it so!" Beatrice exclaimed in low tones, and she repeated
the words again and again, pausing now and then and looking fixedly at
her mother.

"Dear child," said the Marchesa, "what does it matter? If it were not
such an exertion to talk, I am sure I could make you see what a good
match it is, and how glad you ought to be."

"Glad! Oh, mamma, you do not understand! The degradation of it!"

"The degradation? Where is there anything degrading in it?