Up at the castle, Cardinal Udeschini was walking backwards and
forwards on the terrace, reading his Breviary.
Beatrice was seated under the white awning, at the terrace-end,
doing some kind of needlework.
Presently the Cardinal came to a standstill near her, and
closed his book, putting his finger in it, to keep the place.
"It will be, of course, a great loss to Casa Udeschini, when
you marry," he remarked.
Beatrice looked up, astonishment on her brow.
"When I marry?" she exclaimed. "Well, if ever there was a
thunderbolt from a clear sky!"
And she laughed.
"Yes-when you marry," the Cardinal repeated, with conviction.
"You are a young woman--you are twenty-eight years old. You
will, marry. It is only right that you should marry. You have
not the vocation for a religious. Therefore you must marry.
But it will be a great loss to the house of Udeschini."
"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," said Beatrice,
laughing again. "I haven't the remotest thought of marrying.
I shall never marry."
"Il ne faut jamais dire a la fontaine, je ne boirai pas de ton
eau," his Eminence cautioned her, whilst the lines of humour
about his mouth emphasised themselves, and his grey eyes
twinkled. "Other things equal, marriage is as much the proper
state for the laity, as celibacy is the proper state for the
clergy. You will marry. It would be selfish of us to oppose
your marrying. You ought to marry. But it will be a great
loss to the family--it will be a great personal loss to me.
You are as dear to me as any of my blood. I am always
forgetting that we are uncle and niece by courtesy only."
"I shall never marry. But nothing that can happen to me can
ever make the faintest difference in my feeling for you. I
hope you know how much I love you?" She looked into his eyes,
smiling her love. "You are only my uncle by courtesy? But you
are more than an uncle--you have been like a father to me, ever
since I left my convent."
The Cardinal returned her smile.
"Carissima," he murmured. Then, "It will be a matter of the
utmost importance to me, however," he went on, "that, when the
time comes, you should marry a good man, a suitable man--a man
who will love you, whom you will love--and, if possible, a man
who will not altogether separate you from me, who will perhaps
love me a little too. It would send me in sorrow to my grave,
if you should marry a man who was not worthy of you."