The Princess boldly gave out that the marriage would take place in the autumn, and confided to two or three gossips that she really meant to have a quiet wedding in the summer, because it would be so much more economical, and the young couple did not like the idea of waiting so long.  As for a dowry, everybody knew that Sassi, dear, kind-hearted old man, had left Sabina what he had; and there were the statues.

Prince Conti came to the Embassy as soon as he arrived, and met Malipieri, to whom he was overpoweringly cordial in his weak way.  On the whole, at their first interview, he judged that it would not be easy to borrow money of him, and went away disappointed.

Society asked where Malipieri’s father was, and learned that he was nearly seventy and was paralysed, and never left his house in Venice, but that he highly approved of his son’s marriage and wished to see his future daughter-in-law as soon as possible.  The Princess said that Sabina and Malipieri would live with him, but would come to Rome for the winter.

Prince Rubomirsky, Sabina’s uncle, sent her a very handsome diamond necklace, which the Princess showed to all her friends, and some of them began to send wedding presents likewise, because they had been privately informed that the marriage was to take place very soon.

Sabina lived joyously in the moment, apparently convinced that fate would bring everything right, and doing her best to drive away the melancholy that had settled upon Malipieri.  Something would happen, she said.  It was impossible that heaven could be so cruel as to part them and ruin both their lives for the sake of a promise given to a man dead long ago.  Malipieri wished that he could believe it.

He grew almost desperate as time went on and he saw how the Princess was doing everything to make the engagement irrevocable.  He grew thin, and nervous, and his eyes were restless.  The deep tan of the African sun was disappearing, too, and sometimes he looked almost ill.  People said he was too much in love, and laughed.  Little by little Sabina understood that she could not persuade him to trust to the future, and she grew anxious about him.  He wondered how she could still deceive herself as to the inevitable end.

“We can go on being engaged as long as we please,” she said hopefully.  “There are plenty of possible excuses.”

“You and I are not good at lying,” he answered, with a weary smile.  “We told each other so, that night.”

“But it is perfectly true that I am almost too young to be married,” said she; “and really, you know, it might be more sensible to wait till I am nineteen.”

“We should not think it sensible to wait a week, if there were no hindrance.  You know that.”

“Of course!  But when there is a hindrance, as you call it, it is very sensible indeed to wait,” retorted Sabina, with a truly feminine sense of the value of logic.  “I shall think so, and I shall say so, if I must.  Then you will have to wait, too, and what will it matter, so long as we can see each other every day?  Have people never waited a year to be married?”