"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?"
"You know that we may wait all our lives."
"No. I will not do that," Sabina said with sudden energy. "If nothing happens, I will make something happen. You know what I told you. Have you forgotten? And I am sure your father will understand."
"I doubt it," Malipieri answered, smiling in spite of himself.
To tell the truth, since her mother had cleared away so many dangers, and showed no intention of shutting her up in a convent, Sabina had begun to see that it would be quite another matter to run away and follow Malipieri to the ideal desert island, especially after they had been openly engaged to be married and the engagement had been broken. The world would have to know the story of his marriage then, and it would call him dishonourable for having allowed himself to be engaged to her when he was not free. It would say that she had found out the truth, and that he was a villain, or something unpleasant of that sort. But she meant to keep up the illusion bravely, as long as there was any life in it at all, and then "something must happen."
"It seems so strange that I should be braver than you," she said.
He did not wonder at that as much as she did. Her reputation was saved now, but his honour was in the balance, and at the mercy of a worldly and unscrupulous woman. When he broke the engagement, the Princess would tell the story of his marriage and publish it on the housetops. He told Sabina so.
"You are safe," he added; "but when I lose you, I shall lose my place among honourable men."