“Thank you, Beatrice carissima,” answered her mother with a sigh and a gentle smile.  “It will make life so much easier.”

Again there was a long silence, and Beatrice sat motionless in her chair, debating whether she should wait where she was until San Miniato came, as he was sure to do before long, or whether she should go to her room and write a letter to some intimate friend, which would of course never be sent, or, lastly, whether she should not take Teresina and go down to her bath in the sea before the midday breakfast.  While she was still hesitating, San Miniato arrived.

There was something peculiarly irritating to her in his appearance on that morning.  He was arrayed in perfectly new clothes of light gray, which fitted him admirably.  He wore shoes of untanned leather which seemed to be perfectly new also, and reflected the light as though they were waxed.  His stiff collar was like porcelain, the single pearl he wore in his white scarf was so perfect that it might have been false.  His light hair and moustache were very smoothly brushed and combed and his face was exasperatingly sleek.  There was a look of conscious security about him, of overwhelming correctness and good taste, of pride in himself and in his success, which Beatrice felt to be almost more than she could bear with equanimity.  He bent gracefully over the Marchesa’s hand and bowed low to the young girl, not supposing that hers would be offered to him.  In this he was mistaken, however, for she gave him the ends of her fingers.

“Good morning,” she said gently.

The Marchesa looked at her, for she had not expected that she would speak first and certainly not in so gentle a tone.  San Miniato inquired how the two ladies had slept.

“Admirably,” said Beatrice.

“Ah—­as for me, dearest friend,” said the Marchesa, “you know what a nervous creature I am.  I never sleep.”

“You look as though you had rested wonderfully well,” observed Beatrice to San Miniato.  “Half a century, at least!”

“Do I?” asked the Count, delighted by her manner and quite without suspicion.

“Yes.  You look twenty years younger.”

“About ten years old?” suggested San Miniato with a smile.

“Oh no!  I did not mean that.  You look about twenty, I should say.”

“I am charmed,” he answered, without wincing.

“It may be only those beautiful new clothes you have on,” said Beatrice with a sweet smile.  “Clothes make so much difference with a man.”

San Miniato did not show any annoyance, but he made no direct answer and turned to the Marchesa.

“Marchesa gentilissima,” he said, “you liked my last excursion, or were good enough to say that you liked it.  Would you be horrified if I proposed another for this evening—­but not so far, this time?”

“Absolutely horrified,” answered the Marchesa.  “But I suppose that if you have made up your mind you will bring those dreadful men with their chair, like two gendarmes, and they will take me away, whether I like it or not.  Is that what you mean to do?”