The arguments in favour of going were very strong, since she was asked to say, at short notice, whether she would marry Bosio Macomer or not.  In all that Matilde had told Bosio the elder woman had been quite right.  Veronica was strongly prejudiced in his favour, and what Taquisara had managed to say in a few words about the interested nature of the proposal, not only had little weight with Veronica, but was the only point which had not pleased her in her interview with the Sicilian.  After all, he had attacked her only near relatives in hinting, and more than hinting, that they wished to gain possession of her wealth.  She was really ignorant of the fact that Cardinal Campodonico had so rarely even made a pretence of inquiring about the state of her fortune.  She met him occasionally, and he never failed to say something pleasant to her, which she afterwards remembered.  Whenever Gregorio Macomer spoke to her of business, he used the cardinal’s name to give weight to his statements, and Veronica naturally supposed that the princely prelate was informed of all that took place, and approved of everything which Macomer did.  It was no wonder that she turned a deaf ear to Taquisara’s warning, which, as coming from Gianluca’s friend, seemed calculated purposely to influence her against marrying Bosio.

In reality, and apart from the little superficial argumentation with which Veronica had diverted her own mind during the late hours of the afternoon, she had made up her mind that before seriously considering the question of marrying Bosio, she would see Gianluca and give him just such an opportunity of speaking with her alone, as she had given his friend Taquisara.  There was really much directness of understanding and purpose in her young character, together with a fair share of tenacity; for, as Matilde had told Bosio, Veronica was a Serra, which was at least equivalent to saying that she was not an insignificant person of weak will and feeble intelligence.  She was indeed the last of her name, but the race had not decayed.  It was by accident and by force of circumstances that it had come to be represented by the solitary young girl who sat reading a novel over her fire on that evening, caring very little for the fact that she was a very great personage, related to many royal families, a Grandee of Spain and a Princess of the Holy Roman Empire, all in her own right alone, as Veronica Serra—­all of which advantages Taquisara had hastily recapitulated to her that morning.  So long as she should live, the race was certainly not extinct, nor worn out; for she had as much vitality as all the tribe of the Spina family taken together.  She was not, indeed, conscious of her untried strength, for she had never yet had any opportunity of using it; and in the matter of the will, which was the only one that had yet arisen in which she might have tried herself, she had yielded in the simple desire to get rid of a perpetual importunity.  Beyond that she