She met them all at luncheon, and was struck by the fact that both men, as well as Matilde, looked pale and harassed, as though they had slept little.  For there was little sleep or rest, except for Veronica, during those days of gnawing anxiety.  She was struck, too, and startled, by Gregorio’s hideous laugh, which broke out twice during the meal without any apparent reason.  Even the servants seemed to shudder at it and looked at him anxiously, and Matilde’s dark eyes tried to control him.  Indeed, when she looked at him, he seemed docile enough, except that his face twitched very strangely as he nodded to her.

But they all talked, with the evident intention of seeming at their ease; and in a measure they succeeded, for they were not weaklings like Gianluca.  Bosio was by far the least strong in character, but his very remarkable self-possession made him their equal in the present case.  On the previous evening, when Veronica had not been present, they had scarcely made an effort; but now that she was seated at table with them, they performed their parts conscientiously and not without success.

They were encouraged, too, by Veronica’s manner to Bosio.  After her experience in the morning it was a distinct pleasure to be again in his society, and she talked enthusiastically to him of the Bride of Lammermoor—­the book he had given her and which she had begun to read during her solitary dinner on the previous evening.  She was sure of the response to what she said, before she said it, and it came surely enough.  She felt that he understood her, and that she should be glad to talk with him every day.  Several days had passed since they had been alone together for half an hour.

She compared him with the photograph of him, too, and she came to the conclusion that the likeness was not so much flattered, after all.  His unusual pallor to-day had something luminous in it, and the features, in two days of suffering, had grown thinner with a sort of finely chiselled accentuation of their natural refinement.  To-day, he reminded her of certain portraits of Van Dyck.  But when luncheon was over, she avoided being alone with him, for she had not yet come to any decision.  It would be more true, perhaps, to say that she distrusted herself in the decision she now seemed to have reached too suddenly.  For in the expansion of sympathy she enjoyed so much it all at once seemed to her that she could never marry any one but Bosio, who understood her so well, who anticipated what she was going to say, and knew beforehand what she thought upon almost any subject of conversation.

She had never been exactly opposed to the idea, from the first; but now it took possession of her strongly, as it had never done before, and she might almost have taken her genuine affection for the man for love, if she had ever been taught to suppose that love was necessary before marriage.  She had been far too carefully brought up in Italian ideas of the old school, however, to make any such self-examination necessary.  She had been told that it was important that she should like and respect the man she was to marry.  She had no reason for not respecting Bosio, so far as she knew, and she certainly liked him very much indeed.