The young girl rose from her seat and began to walk to and fro on the terrace, her head bent, her hands clasped together. The Marchesa slowly puffed at her cigarette and watched her daughter with half-closed eyes.
"I never meant it so!" Beatrice exclaimed in low tones, and she repeated the words again and again, pausing now and then and looking fixedly at her mother.
"Dear child," said the Marchesa, "what does it matter? If it were not such an exertion to talk, I am sure I could make you see what a good match it is, and how glad you ought to be."
"Glad! Oh, mamma, you do not understand! The degradation of it!"
"The degradation? Where is there anything degrading in it?"
"I see it well enough! To give myself up body and soul to a man I do not love! And for what? Because he has an old name, and I a new one, and I can buy his name with my money. Oh, mother, it is too horrible! Too low! Too vile!"
"My angel, you do not know what strong words you are using—"
"They are not half strong enough—I wish I could—"
But she stopped and began to walk up and down again, her sweet young face pale and weary with pain, her fingers twisting each other nervously. A long silence followed.
"It is of no use to talk about it, my child," said the Marchesa, languidly taking up a novel from the table beside her. "The thing is done. You are engaged, and you must either marry San Miniato or take the consequences and be pointed at as a faithless girl for the rest of your life."