“I thought you liked him.  I thought it would amuse you if he lunched with us.”

Sabina looked at her with some curiosity.

“Did you tell the Baron that Signor Malipieri is here?” she asked carelessly.

“No,” answered the Baroness, looking away.  “As my husband said he could not come to luncheon, it seemed useless.”

Sabina understood now, and smiled.  This was the direct consequence of the talk which had preceded Malipieri’s coming; the Baroness had at once conceived the idea of marrying her to Malipieri.

“What shall we do?” asked the Baroness.

“Whatever you think best,” answered Sabina, with sudden meekness.  “I think you ought at least to tell Signor Malipieri that the Baron is not coming.  He may be in a hurry, you know.  He may be wasting time.”

The Baroness smiled incredulously.

“My dear,” she said, “if he had been so very anxious to see my husband, he would have gone to the Senate first.  It is near the palace.”

She said no more, but led the way back to the morning room, while Sabina reflected upon the possible truth of the last suggestion, and wondered whether Malipieri had really made his visit for the sake of exchanging a few words with her rather than in order to see Volterra.  The Baroness spoke to him as she opened the door.

“My husband has not come yet,” she said.  “We will not wait for him.”

She rang the bell to order luncheon, and Malipieri glanced at Sabina’s face, wondering what the Baroness had said to her, for it was not reasonable to suppose that the two had left the room in order to consult in secret upon the question of waiting for Volterra.  But Sabina did not meet his look, and her pale young face was impenetrably calm, for she was thinking about what she had just discovered.  She was as certain that she knew what had passed in the Baroness’s thoughts, as if the latter had spoken aloud.  The knowledge, for it amounted to that, momentarily chased away the recollection of what Malipieri had said.

It was rather amusing to be looked upon as marriageable, and to a man she already knew.  Her mother had often talked to her with cynical frankness, telling her that she was to make the best match that could be obtained for her, naming numbers of young men she had never seen and assuring her that likes and dislikes had nothing to do with matrimony.  They came afterwards, the Princess said, and it generally pleased Providence to send a mild form of aversion as the permanent condition of the bond.  But Sabina had never believed her mother, who had cheated her when she was a child, as many foolish and heartless women do, promising rewards which were never given, and excursions which were always put off and little joys which always turned to sorrows less little by far.