e could have ever liked him, or found
pleasure in his society, and when she thought of the few words she had
spoken and which had decided her fate, she could not comprehend the
state of mind which had led her into such a piece of folly, and she was
as angry with herself as, for the time being, she was angry with all the
world besides.

She saw, too, and for the first time, how lonely she was in the world,
and a deep and burning longing for real love and sympathy took
possession of her. She had friends, of course, as young girls have, of
much her own age and not unlike her in their inexperienced ideas of
life. But there was not one of them at Sorrento, nor had she met any one
among the many acquaintances she had made, to whom she would care to
turn. Even her own intimate associates from childhood, who were far away
in Sicily, or travelling elsewhere, would not have satisfied her. They
could not have understood her, their answers to her questions would have
seemed foolish and worthless, and they would have tormented her with
questions of their own, inopportune, importunate, tiresome. She herself
did not know that what she craved was the love or the friendship of one
strong, honest man.

It was strange to find out suddenly how wide was the breach which
separated her from her mother, with whom she had lived so happily
throughout her childhood and early youth, with whom she had agreed--or
rather, who had agreed with her--on the whole almost without a
discussion. It was hard to find in her now so little warmth of heart, so
little power to understand, above all such a display of determination
and such quiet force in argument. Very indolent women are sometimes very
deceptive in regard to the will they hold in reserve, but Beatrice could
not have believed that her mother could influence her as she had done.
She reflected that it had surely been within the limits of the
Marchesa's choice to take her daughter's side so soon as she had seen
that the latter had mistaken her own feelings. She need not have agreed
with San Miniato, on that fatal evening at Tragara, that the marriage
was definitely settled, until she had at least exchanged a word with
Beatrice herself.

The future looked black enough on that hot summer morning. The girl was
to be tied for life to a man she despised and hated, to a man who did
not even care for her, as she was now convinced, to a man with a past of
which she knew little and of which the few incidents