She had told him to speak and she waited for his voice.  He, on his part, knew that much was at stake, for he saw that she was moved, and that all depended on his words.  The fewer the better, he thought, if only there could be a note of passion in them, if only one of them could ring as all of poor Ruggiero’s had rung when he had spoken that afternoon.  He hesitated and hesitation would be fatal if it lasted another five seconds.  He grew desperate.  Where were the words and the tone that had broken down the will of other women, far harder to please than this mere child?  He felt everything at once, except love.  He saw her fortune slipping from him at the very moment of getting it, he felt a little contempt for the part he was playing and a sovereign scorn for his own imbecility, he even anticipated the Marchesa’s languid but cutting comments on his failure.  One second more, and all was lost—­but not a word would come.  Then, in sheer despair and with a violence that betrayed it, he seized one of Beatrice’s hands in both of his and kissed it madly a score of times.  As she interpreted the action, no eloquence of words could have told her more of what she wished to hear.  It was unexpected, it was passionate; if it had been premeditated, it would have been a stroke of genius.  As it was, it was a stroke of luck for San Miniato.  With the true gambler’s instinct he saw that he was winning and his hesitation disappeared.  His voice trembled passionately now with excitement, if not with love—­but it was the same to Beatrice, who heard the quick-spoken words that followed, and drank them in as a thirsty man swallows the first draught of wine he can lay hands on, be it ever so acid.

At the first moment she had been startled and had almost uttered a short cry, half of delight and half of fear.  But she had no wish to alarm her mother and the quick thought stifled her voice.  She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly in his own which were cold as ice, and she sat still listening to all he said.

“Ah, Beatrice!” he was saying, “you have given me back life itself!  Can you guess what I have lived through in these days?  Can you imagine how I have thought of you and suffered day and night, and said to myself that I should never have your love?  Can you dream what it must be to a man like me, lonely, friendless, half heart-broken, to find the one jewel worth living for, the one light worth seeking, the one woman worth loving—­and then to long for her almost without hope, and so long?  It is long, too.  Who counts the days or the weeks when he loves?  It is as though we had loved from the beginning of our lives!  Can you or I imagine what it all was like before we met?  I cannot remember that past time.  I had no life before it—­it is all forgotten, all gone, all buried and for ever.  You have made everything new to me, new and beautiful and full of light—­ah, Beatrice!  How I love you!”