The Marchesa di Mola, having eaten about six mouthfuls of twice that number of delicacies and having swallowed half a glass of champagne and a cup of coffee, was extended in her cane rocking-chair, with her back to the moon and her face to the lamp, trying to imagine herself in her comfortable sitting room at the hotel, or even in her own luxurious boudoir in her Sicilian home.  The attempt was fairly successful, and the result was a passing taste of that self-satisfied beatitude which is the peculiar and enviable lot of very lazy people after dinner.  She cared for nothing and she cared for nobody.  San Miniato and Beatrice might sit over there by the water’s edge, in the moonlight, and talk in low tones as long as they pleased.  There were no tiresome people from the hotel to watch their proceedings, and nothing better could happen than that they should fall in love, be engaged and married forthwith.  That was certainly not the way the Marchesa could have wished the courtship and marriage to develop and come to maturity, if there had been witnesses of the facts from amongst her near acquaintance.  But since there was nobody to see, and since it was quite impossible that she should run after the pair when they chose to leave her side, resignation was the best policy, resignation without effort, without fatigue and without qualms.  Moreover, San Miniato himself had told her that in some of the best families in the north of Italy it was considered permissible for a man to offer himself directly to a young lady, and San Miniato was undoubtedly familiar with the usages of the very best society.  It was quite safe to trust to him.

San Miniato himself would have greatly preferred to leave the negotiations in the hands of the Marchesa and would have done so had he not known that she possessed no power whatever over Beatrice.  But he saw that the Marchesa, however much she might desire the marriage, would never exert herself to influence her daughter.  She was far too indolent, and at heart, perhaps, too indifferent, and she knew the value of money and especially of her own.  San Miniato made up his mind that if he won at all, it must be upon his own merits and by his own efforts.

He had not found it hard to lead Beatrice away from the lamp when dinner was over, and after walking about on the rocks for a few minutes he proposed that they should sit down near the water, facing the moonlit sea.  Beatrice sat upon a smooth projection and San Miniato placed himself at her feet, in such a position that he could look up into her face and talk to her without raising his voice.

“So you are glad you came here, Donna Beatrice,” he said.

“Very glad,” she answered.  “It is something I have never seen before—­something I shall never forget, as long as I live.”

“Nor I.”

“Have you a good memory?”

“For some things, not for others.”

“For what, for instance?”

“For those I love—–­”