asked herself how it could be possible, if
San Miniato loved her as he had said he did, that he should not feel as
she felt and understand love as she did--as something secret and sacred,
to be kept from other eyes. Her instinct told her easily enough that San
Miniato was at that very moment telling her mother all that had taken
place, and she bitterly resented the thought. It would surely have been
enough, if he had waited until the following day and then formally asked
her hand of the Marchesa. It would have been better, more natural in
every way, just now when they had gone up to the table, if he had said
simply that they loved one another and had asked her mother's blessing.
Anything rather than to feel that he was coolly describing the details
of the first love scene in her life--the thousandth, perhaps, in his
own.

After all, did she love him? Did he really love her? His passionate
manner when he had seized her hand had moved her strangely, and she had
listened with a sort of girlish wonder to his declarations of devotion
afterwards. But now, in the, calm moonlight and quite alone, she could
hear Ruggiero's deep strong voice in her ears, and the few manly words
he had uttered. There was not much in them in the way of eloquence--a
sailor's picturesque phrase--she had heard something like it before. But
there had been strength, and the power to do, and the will to act in
every intonation of his speech. She remembered every word San Miniato
had spoken, far better than he would remember it himself in a day or
two, and she was ready to analyse and criticise now what had charmed and
pleased her a moment earlier. Why was he going over it all to her
mother, like a lesson learnt and repeated? She was so glad to be
alone--she would have been so glad to think alone of what she had taken
for the most delicious moment of her young life. If he were really in
earnest, he would feel as she did and would have said at once that it
was late and time to be going home--he would have invented any excuse to
escape the interview which her mother would try to force upon him. Could
it be love that he felt? And if not, as her heart told her it was not,
what was his object in playing such a comedy? She knew well enough, from
Teresina, that many a young Neapolitan nobleman would have given his
title for her fortune, but Teresina, perhaps for reasons of her own,
never dared to cast such an aspersion upon San Miniato, even in the
intimate conv