"So much the better. They would hear me."
"They would not help you, if they heard you," observed the Marchesa.
"They could at least bear witness to the answer I should receive."
"And suppose, dear friend, that the answer should not be what you wish, or expect—would you care to have witnesses, alive or dead?"
"Why should the answer be a negative?"
"Because," replied the Marchesa, turning her face directly to his, "because Beatrice is herself uncertain. You know well enough that no man should ever tell a woman he loves her until he is sure that she loves him. And that is not the only reason."
"Have you a better one?" asked San Miniato with a laugh.
"The impossibility of it all! Imagine, in our world, a man deliberately asking a young girl to marry him!"
San Miniato smiled, but the Marchesa could not see the expression of his face.
"We do not think it so impossible in Piedmont," he answered quietly.