“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 last few years.”

“The plan certainly saves the parents a great deal of trouble,” observed the Marchesa, lazily shutting her eyes and fanning herself again.

“And it places the decision of the most vital question in life in the hands of the two beings most concerned.”

San Miniato spoke rather sententiously, for he knew how to impress his companion and he meant to be impressive.

“No doubt,” answered the Marchesa.  “No doubt.  But,” she continued, bringing up the time-honoured argument, “the two young people most concerned are not always the people best able to judge of their own welfare.”

“Of course they are not,” assented San Miniato, readily enough, and abandoning the point which could be of no use to him.  “Of course not.  But, dearest Marchesa, since you have judged for us—­and there is no one else to judge—­do you not think that you might leave the rest in my hands?  The mere question to be asked, you know, in the hope of a final answer—­the mere technicality of love-making, with which you can only be familiar from the woman’s point of view, and not from the man’s, as I am.  Not that I have had much experience—–­”

“You?” laughed the Marchesa, touching his hand with her fan.  “You without much experience!  But you are historical, dearest friend!  Who does not know of your conquests?”

“I, at least, do not,” answered San Miniato with well-affected modesty.  “But that is not the question.  Let us get back to it.  This is my plan.  The moon is full to-morrow and the weather is hot.  We will all go in my boat to Tragara and dine on the rocks.  It will be beautiful.  Then after dinner we can walk about in the moonlight—­slowly, not far from you, as at the end of this terrace.  And while you are looking on I, in a low voice, will express my sincere feelings to Donna Beatrice, and ask the most important of all questions.  Does not that please you?  Is it not well combined?”