“I will marry him, since what I never meant for a promise really is one and has seemed so to you and to him.  But if I am a faithless wife to him, I will lay all my sins at your door.”

“Beatrice!” cried the Marchesa, in real horror this time.  She crossed herself.

“I am young—­shall I not love?” asked the young girl defiantly.

“Dearest child, for the love of Heaven do not talk so—­”

“No—­I will not.  I will never say it again—­and you will not forget it.”

She turned to leave the terrace and met San Miniato face to face.

“Good morning,” she said coldly, and passed him.

“Of course you have telegraphed the news of the engagement to your sister?” said the Marchesa as soon as she saw him, and making a sign to intimate that he must answer in the affirmative.

“Of course—­and to all my best friends,” he replied promptly with a ready smile.  Beatrice heard his answer just as she passed through the door, but she did not turn her head.  She guessed that her mother had asked the question in haste in order that San Miniato might say something which should definitely prove to Beatrice that he considered himself betrothed.  Yesterday she would have believed his answer.  To-day she believed nothing he said.  She went to her room and bathed her eyes in cold water and sat down for a moment before her glass and looked at herself thoughtfully.  There she was, the same Beatrice she saw in the mirror every day, the same clear brown eyes, the same soft brown hair, the same broad, crayon-like eyebrows, the same free pose of the head.  But there was something different in the face, which she did not recognise.  There was something defiant in the eyes, and hard about the mouth, which was new to her and did not altogether please her, though she could not change it.  She combed the little ringlets on her forehead and dabbed a little scent upon her temples to cool them, and then she rose quickly and went out.  A thought had struck her and she at once put into execution the plan it suggested.

She took a parasol and went out of the hotel, hatless and gloveless, into the garden of orange trees which lies between the buildings and the gate.  She strolled leisurely along the path towards the exit, on one side of which is the porter’s lodge, while the little square stone box of a building which is the telegraph office stands on the other.  She knew that just before twelve o’clock Ruggiero and his brother were generally seated on the bench before the lodge waiting for orders for the afternoon.  As she expected, she found them, and she beckoned to Ruggiero and turned back under the trees.  In an instant he was at her side.  She was startled to see how pale he was and how suddenly his face seemed to have grown thin.  She stopped and he stood respectfully before her, cap in hand, looking down.

“Ruggiero,” she said, “will you do me a service?”

“Yes, Excellency.”