“Dio mio!  To my daughter!  How could you—­” The Marchesa raised her hands and let them fall again.

“But why not?” asked San Miniato, suppressing a smile.  “Have I been such an impossibly bad man that the very mention of my past must shock a young girl—­whom I love?” In the last words he found an opportunity to practise the expression of a little passion, and took advantage of it, well knowing that it would be useful in the immediate future.

“I never said that!” protested the Marchesa.  “But we all know something about you, dear Don Juan!”

“Calumnies, nothing but calumnies!”

“But such pretty calumnies—­you might almost accept them.  I should think none the worse of you if they were all true.”

“You are charming, dearest Marchesa.  I kiss your generous hand!  As a matter of fact, I only told Donna Beatrice—­may I call her Beatrice to you now, as I have long called her in my heart?  I only told her that I had been unhappy, that I had loved twice—­once a woman who is dead, once another who has long ago forgotten me.  That was all.  Was it so very bad?  Her heart was softened—­she is so gentle!  And then I told her that a greater and stronger passion than those now filled my present life, and last of all I told her that I loved her.”

“And she returned the compliment immediately?” asked the Marchesa, slowly selecting a sugared chestnut from the plate beside her, turning it round, examining it and at last putting it into her mouth.

“How lightly you speak of what concerns life and death!” sighed San Miniato.  “No—­Beatrice did not answer immediately.  I said much more—­far more than I can remember.  How can you ask me to repeat word for word the unpremeditated outpourings of a happy passion?  The flood has swept by, leaving deep traces—­but who can remember where the eddies and rapids were?”

“You are very poetical, caro mio.  Your language delights me—­it is the language of the heart.  Pray give me one of those little cigarettes you smoke.  Yes—­and a light—­and now the least drop of champagne.  I will drink your health.”

“And I both yours and Beatrice’s,” answered San Miniato, filling his own glass.

“You may put Beatrice first, since she is yours.”

“But without you there would be no Beatrice, gentilissima,” said the Count gallantly, when he had emptied his glass.

“That is true, and pretty besides.  And so,” continued the Marchesa in a tone of languid reflection, “you have actually been making love to my daughter, beyond my hearing, alone on the rocks—­and I gave you my permission, and now you are engaged to be married!  It is too extraordinary to be believed.  That was not the way I was married.  There was more formality in those days.”

Indeed, she could not imagine the deceased Granmichele throwing himself upon his knees at her feet, even upon the softest of carpets.

“Then I thank the fates that those days are over!” returned San Miniato.