she had learned
repelled her now, instead of attracting her. She fancied how he had
spoken to those other women, much as he had spoken to her, perhaps a
little more eloquently as, perhaps, he had not been thinking of their
fortunes but of themselves, but still always in that high-comedy tone
with the studied gesture and the cadenced intonation. She did not know
whether they deserved her pity, those two whom he pretended to have
loved, but she was ready to pity them, nameless as they were. The one
was dead, the other, at least, had been wise enough to forget him in
time.

Then she thought of what must happen after her marriage, when he had got
her fortune and could take her away to the society in which he had
always lived. There, of course, he would meet women by the score with
whom he was and long had been on terms of social intimacy far closer
than he had reached with her in the few weeks of their acquaintance.
Doubtless, he would spend such time as he could spare from gambling, in
conversation with them. Doubtless, he had many thoughts and memories and
associations in common with them. Doubtless, people would smile a little
and pity the young countess. And Beatrice resented pity and the thought
of it. She would rather pity others.

Evil thoughts crossed her young brain, and she said to herself that she
might perhaps be revenged upon the world for what she was suffering,
for the pain that had already come into her young life, for the wretched
years she anticipated in the future, for her mother's horrible logic
which had forced her into the marriage, above all for San Miniato's
cleverly arranged scene by which the current of her existence had been
changed. San Miniato had perhaps gone too far when he had said that
Beatrice was kind. She, at least, felt that there was anything but
kindness in her heart now, and she desired nothing so much as to make
some one suffer something of what she felt. It was wicked, doubtless, as
she admitted to herself. It was bad and wrong and cruel, but it was not
heartless. A woman without heart would not have felt enough to resent
having felt at all, and moreover would probably be perfectly well
satisfied with the situation.

The expression of hardness deepened in the young girl's face as she sat
there, silently thinking over all that was to come, and glancing from
time to time at her mother's placid countenance. It was really amazing
to see how much the Marchesa could bear when she was