er, was unusually energetic.

"How well you say it all!" she exclaimed.

"And you consent, dear Marchesa?" asked the Count, with an eagerness
not all feigned.

"You say it all so well! If I could say it half so well to
Beatrice--there might be some possibility. But Beatrice is not like
me--nor I like you--and so--"

She broke off in the middle of the sentence with an indolent little
laugh.

"If she were like you," said San Miniato, "I would not hesitate long."

There was an intonation in his voice that pleased the middle-aged woman,
as he had intended.

"What would you do?" she asked, fanning herself slowly in the dark.

"I would speak to her myself."

"Heavens!" Again the Marchesa laughed. The idea seemed eccentric enough
in her eyes.

"Why not?"

"Why not? Dearest San Miniato, do not try to make me argue such insane
questions with you. You know how lazy I am. I can never talk."

"A woman need not talk in order to be persuaded. It is enough that the
man should. Let me try."

"I will shut my ears."

"I will kneel at your feet."

"I shall go to sleep."

"I could wake you."

"How?"

"By telling you that I mean to speak to Donna Beatrice myself."

"Such an idea would wake the dead!"

"So much the better. They would hear me."

"They would not help you, if they heard you," observed the Marchesa.

"They could at least bear witness to the answer I should receive."

"And suppose, dear friend, that the answer should not be what you wish,
or expect--would you care to have witnesses, alive or dead?"

"Why should the answer be a negative?"

"Because," replied the Marchesa, turning her face directly to his,
"because Beatrice is herself uncertain. You know well enough that no man
should ever tell a woman he loves her until he is sure that she loves
him. And that is not the only reason."

"Have you a better one?" asked San Miniato with a laugh.

"The impossibility of it all! Imagine, in our world, a man deliberately
asking a young girl to marry him!"

San Miniato smiled, but the Marchesa could not see the expression of his
face.

"We do not think it so impossible in Piedmont," he answered quietly.

"I am surprised at that." The lady's tone was rather cold.

"Are you? Why? We are less old-fashioned, that is all."

"And is it really done in--in good families?"

"Often," answered San Miniato, seeing his advantage and pressing it. "I
could give you many instances without difficulty, within the l