of the bitterness returned upon her now.  But she would not again need to force the tears back, pressing her hands upon her eyes with desperate strength as she had done.  It was useless to cry over what could not be helped, and since she had made the great mistake of her life she must keep her word or lose her good name for ever, according to the ideas in which she had been brought up.  But it would be very hard to meet San Miniato now, within the next quarter of an hour, as she inevitably must.  Less hard, perhaps, than if she had convicted him of falsehood in the matter of the telegram, as she had fully expected that she could—­but painful enough, heaven knew.

There was an old trace of oriental fatalism in her nature, passed down to her, perhaps, from some Saracen ancestor in the unknown genealogy of her family.  It is common enough in the south, often profoundly leavened with superstition, sometimes existing side by side with the most absolute scepticism, but its influence is undeniable, and accounts for a certain resignation in hopeless cases which would be utterly foreign to the northern character.  Beatrice had it, and having got the worst of the first contest she conceived that further resistance would be wholly useless, and accepted the inevitable conclusion that she must marry San Miniato whether she liked him or not.  But this state of mind did not by any means imply that she would marry him with a good grace, or ever again return in her behaviour towards him to the point she had reached on the previous evening.  That, thought Beatrice, would be too much to expect, and was certainly more than she intended to give.  She would be quite willing to show that she had been deceived into consenting, and was only keeping her word as a matter of principle.  San Miniato might think what he pleased.  She knew that whatever she did, he would never think of breaking off the engagement, since what he wanted was not herself but her fortune.  She shut her parasol with a rather vicious snap as she went into the cool hall out of the sun, and the hard look in her face was more accentuated than before, as she slowly ascended the steps.

The conversation between her mother and San Miniato during her short absence had been characteristic.  They understood each other perfectly but neither would have betrayed to the other, by the merest hint, the certainty that the marriage was by no means agreeable to poor Beatrice herself.

“Dearest Marchesa,” said San Miniato, touching her hand with his lips, and then seating himself beside her, “tell me that you are not too much exhausted after your exertions last night?  Have you slept well?  Have you any appetite?”

“What a good doctor you would make, dear friend!” exclaimed the Marchesa with a little smile.

And so they exchanged the amenities usual at their first meeting in the day, as though they had not been buying and selling an innocent soul, and did not appreciate the fact in its startling reality.  Several more phrases of the same kind were spoken.