At last the time came.  Before she rang for her maid, who had brought lights and had gone away again, she stood a moment before the fire and looked once more at Bosio’s photograph, asking herself seriously for the last time whether she should marry him or not.  But the answer was there before the question, and she had made up her mind.

At the last minute, she had forgotten the flower she had promised to wear, and she sent her maid in haste to see whether she could find one of any sort in the house.  It was the middle of December, and it was not probable that such a thing could be found in the Palazzo Macomer.  The maid came back empty-handed.  Veronica told her to find an artificial one, and Elettra, after some searching, produced a very beautiful artificial gardenia, which Veronica pinned in her white bodice, with a smile.  She glanced at herself once more, and saw that the colour was still in her cheeks, and she was satisfied with herself.

When she entered the drawing-room, the other three were already there, and she saw the faces of Matilde and Bosio change as they caught sight of the flower.  Gregorio apparently knew nothing of the arrangement—­another instance of Matilde’s tact which pleased Veronica.  Matilde herself was no longer pale.  She had seen how desperate she looked and had put a little rouge upon her cheeks so deftly and artistically that the young girl did not at first detect the deception.  But her features had still been drawn and weary.  They relaxed suddenly in a genuine smile when she saw the gardenia.  But Bosio grew paler, Veronica thought, and looked very nervous.  At table, he was opposite Veronica, and he reminded her more than ever of Van Dyck’s portraits, so that she wondered why she had never before thought of the general resemblance.  He talked less than at luncheon, and sometimes his eyes rested on hers with an expression which she could not understand.  But there was admiration in it, as well as something else.  Veronica herself was animated, and had never looked so well before, in the recollection of the other three.

After dinner Gregorio disappeared almost immediately, and at the end of a quarter of an hour Matilde left the room, merely observing that she was going to write letters and would come back when she had finished.  Bosio and Veronica were alone.

To her, it seemed to have come suddenly at the end, and she did not quite realize how it was that she found herself standing on one side of the fireplace, while he stood on the other.

They looked at each other a moment.  Then Veronica smiled faintly, and drew herself up—­or lengthened herself—­as slight young girls have a way of doing when they are pleased, and she turned a little in the movement, and glanced at the clock, still faintly smiling.

Bosio was watching her, and he could not help admiring her lithe figure and small, well-poised head, that had a sort of girlish royalty of carriage not at all connected with beauty; for she was not beautiful, and she herself knew that there were times when she was almost ugly.  He saw and admired, and he cursed himself for what he meant to do.  He was not sure, even now, that he could do it.