Beltrami's face always put me in mind of that sinister countenance of Sigismondo Malatesta, which sneers so malevolently at the curious onlooker from the walls of the Duomo at Rimini. He had the same treacherous droop of the eyelids, the same thin nose with wide, sensitive nostrils, and the same malignant smile on his thin lips. Yet he was handsome enough, this young Italian; but his face, in spite of my friendship, repelled me--in a less degree, it is true, but still it repelled me in the like manner as did that of the Contessa Morone. So he was going to marry her. Well, they were certainly well-matched in every respect, and if the man had not the active wickedness of the woman, still the capability of evil was there, and would awaken to life when necessary to be exercised. Both Beltrami and his future wife were anachronisms in this nineteenth century, and should have lived, smiled, and died in the time of the Renaissance, when they would have been fitted companions of those Italian despots of whom Machiavelli gives the typical examples in his book "The Prince."
The Marchese saw my inquiring look, and with an enigmatic smile walked across to where I was standing in the warm, yellow light.
"Ebbene! Signor Hugo," he whispered, with a swift glance at the Contessa, "tell me what you think of my choice."
"It does you credit, Marchese. You will have a beautiful wife."
"And a loving one, I hope. Tell me, mon ami, do you not envy me?"
I hesitated a moment before replying, and then blurted out the truth,--
"Honestly speaking, Signor Luigi, I do not!"
"Dame! and why?"
"Well, I can hardly tell you my reasons, but I have them, nevertheless."
Beltrami looked hard at me with an inquisitive look in his dark eyes, and a satirical smile on his thin lips.