"As for my blessing, you shall have it, and at once. But indeed, I am most curious to know exactly what she said, and what you said—I, who am never curious about anything!"
"Two words tell the story. I told her I loved her and she answered that she loved me."
"Dearest friend, how long it took you to say those two words! You must have hesitated a good deal."
"To tell the truth, there was more said than that. I will not deny the grave imputation. I spoke of my past life—"
"Dio mio! To my daughter! How could you—" The Marchesa raised her hands and let them fall again.
"But why not?" asked San Miniato, suppressing a smile. "Have I been such an impossibly bad man that the very mention of my past must shock a young girl—whom I love?" In the last words he found an opportunity to practise the expression of a little passion, and took advantage of it, well knowing that it would be useful in the immediate future.
"I never said that!" protested the Marchesa. "But we all know something about you, dear Don Juan!"
"Calumnies, nothing but calumnies!"
"But such pretty calumnies—you might almost accept them. I should think none the worse of you if they were all true."
"You are charming, dearest Marchesa. I kiss your generous hand! As a matter of fact, I only told Donna Beatrice—may I call her Beatrice to you now, as I have long called her in my heart? I only told her that I had been unhappy, that I had loved twice—once a woman who is dead, once another who has long ago forgotten me. That was all. Was it so very bad? Her heart was softened—she is so gentle! And then I told her that a greater and stronger passion than those now filled my present life, and last of all I told her that I loved her."