“No need of waiting,” answered San Miniato, again addressing himself to the Marchesa.  “Donna Beatrice has two great gifts.  She is kind, and she has charm.”

There being no exact equivalent for the word “charm” in the Italian language, San Miniato used the French.  Ruggiero began to puzzle his brains, asking himself what this foreign virtue could be which his master estimated so highly.  He also thought it very strange that Beatrice should have said of herself that she was pretty, and still stranger that San Miniato should not have said it.

“Is that all?” asked Beatrice.  “I need not have been in such a hurry to extract your compliments from you.”

“If you had understood what I said,” answered San Miniato unmoved, “you would see that no man could say more of a woman.”

“Kind and charming!  It is not much,” laughed the young girl.  “Unless you mean much more than you say—­and I asked you to be indiscreet!”

“Kind hearts are rare enough in this world, Donna Beatrice, and as for charm—­”

“What is charm?”

“It is what the violet has, and the camelia has not—­”

“Heavens!  Are you going to sigh to me in the language of flowers?”

“Beatrice!  Beatrice!” cried the Marchesa, with the same affectation of horror as before.

“Dear mamma, are you uncomfortable?  Oh no!  I see now.  You are horrified.  Have I said anything dreadful?” she asked, turning to San Miniato.

“Anything dreadful?  What an idea!  Really, Marchesa carissima, I was just beginning to explain to Donna Beatrice what charm is, when you cut me short.  I implore you to let me go on with my explanation.”

“On condition that Beatrice makes no comments.  Give me a cigarette, Teresina.”

“The congregation will not interrupt the preacher before the benediction,” said Beatrice folding her small hands on her knee, and looking down with a devout expression.

“Charm,” began San Miniato, “is the something which some women possess, and which holds the men who love them—­”

“Only those who love them?” interrupted Beatrice, looking up quickly.

“I thought,” said the Marchesa, “that you were not to give us any comments.”  She dropped the words one or two at a time between the puffs of her cigarette.

“A question is not a comment, mamma.  I ask for instruction.”

“Go on, dearest friend,” said her mother to the Count.  “She is incorrigible.”

“On the contrary, Donna Beatrice fills my empty head with ideas.  The question was to the point.  All men feel the charm of such women as all men smell the orange blossoms here in May—­”

“The language of flowers again!” laughed Beatrice.

“You are so like a flower,” answered San Miniato softly.

“Am I?” She laughed again, then grew grave and looked away.

Ruggiero’s hand shook on the heavy tiller, and San Miniato, who supposed he was steering all the time, turned suddenly.