ws, fanned herself lazily and smiled.

"Are we to begin the old argument every morning, my dear?" she asked.
"It always ends in the same way, and you always say the same dreadful
things to me. I really cannot bear it much longer. You know very well
that you bound yourself, and that you were quite free to tell San
Miniato that you did not care for him. A girl should know her own mind
before she tells a man she loves him--just as a man should before he
speaks."

"San Miniato certainly knows his own mind," retorted Beatrice viciously.
"No one can accuse him of not being ready and anxious to marry me--and
my fortune."

"How you talk, my angel! Of course if you had no fortune, or much less
than you have, he could not think of marrying you. That is clear. I
never pretended the contrary. But that does not contradict the fact that
he loves you to distraction, if that is what you want."

"To distraction!" repeated Beatrice with scorn.

"Why not, dearest child? Do you think a man cannot love because he is
poor?"

"That is not the question, mamma!" cried Beatrice impatiently. "You know
it is not. But no woman can be deceived twice by the same comedy, and
few would be deceived once. You know as well as I that it was all a play
the other night, that he was trying to find words, as he was trying to
find sentiments, and that when the words would not be found he thought
it would be efficacious to seize my hand and kiss it. I daresay he
thought I believed him--of course he did. But not for long--oh! not for
long. Real love finds even fewer words, but it finds them better, and
the ring of them is truer, and one remembers them longer!"

"Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa. "What can you know of such things!
You talk as though some man had dared to speak to you--"

"Do I?" asked the girl with sudden coldness, and a strange look came
into her eyes, which her mother did not see.

"Yes, you do. And yet I know that it is impossible. Besides the whole
discussion is useless and wears me out, though it seems to interest you.
Of course you will marry San Miniato. When you have got past this absurd
humour you will see what a good husband you have got, and you will be
very happy."

"Happy! With that man!" Beatrice's lip curled.

"You will," answered her mother, taking no notice. "Happiness depends
upon two things in this world, when marriage is concerned. Money and a
good disposition. You have both, between you, and you will be happy."