The Princess laughed, and blew a cloud of smoke from her lips, and then showed her handsome teeth.

“I have only to say the word,” she answered.  “When a young girl of our world has spent the night in a man’s rooms, he marries her, if her family wishes it.  No man of honour can possibly refuse.  I suppose that this Malipieri is a gentleman?”

“Indeed he is!” Sabina spoke with considerable indignation.

“Precisely.  Then he will come to me this afternoon and tell his story frankly, just as you have done—­it was very sensible of you, my dear—­ and he will offer to marry you.  Of course I shall accept.”

“But, mother,” cried Sabina, aghast at the suddenness of the conclusion, “I am not at all sure—­”

She stopped, feeling that she was much more sure of being in love with Malipieri than she had been when she had driven to the palace with Sassi on the previous afternoon.

“Is there any one you like better?” asked the Princess sharply.  “Are you in love with any one else?”

“No!  But—­”

“I had never seen your father when our marriage was arranged,” the Princess observed.

“And you were very unhappy together,” Sabina answered promptly.  “You always say so.”

“Oh, unhappy?  I am not so sure, now.  Certainly Hot nearly so miserable as half the people I know.  After all, what is happiness, child?  Doing what you please, is it not?”

Sabina had not thought of this definition, and she laughed, without accepting it.  In one way, everything looked suddenly bright and cheerful, since her mother had believed her story, and she knew that she was not to go back to the Baroness, who had not believed her at all, and had called her bad names.

“And I almost always did as I pleased,” the Princess continued, after a moment’s reflection.  “The only trouble was that your dear father did not always like what I did.  He was a very religious man.  That was what ruined us.  He gave half his income to charities and then scolded me because I could not live on the other half.  Besides, he turned the Ten Commandments into a hundred.  It was a perfect multiplication, table of things one was not to do.”

Poor Sabina’s recollections of her father had nothing of affection in them, and she did not feel called upon to defend his memory.  Like many weak but devout men, he had been severe to his children, even to cruelty, while perfectly incapable of controlling his wife’s caprices.

“I remember, though I was only a little girl when he died,” Sabina said.

“Is Malipieri very religious?” the Princess asked “I mean, does he make a fuss about having fish on Fridays?” She spoke quite gravely.

“I fancy not,” Sabina answered, seeing nothing odd in her mother’s implied definition of righteousness.  “He never talked to me about religion, I am sure.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed the Princess devoutly.

“He always says he is a republican,” Sabina remarked, glad to talk about him.