Taquisara | Page 7

silence, just for those few
seconds. After all, she was really more intimate with him than with her
aunt and uncle, and liked him better than either of them, so that she had
a right to expect that he should have answered with something more
than silence when she told him of such a matter.
She sat a long time in a deep chair near her toilet table, thinking about
her own life, in the great dim room which half a dozen candles barely
lighted; and perhaps it was the first time that she had really asked
herself how long her present mode of existence was to continue, how
long she was to lie half-hidden, as it were, in the sombrely respectable
dimness of the Macomer establishment, how long she was to remain
unmarried. Knowing the customs of her own people in regard to
marriage, as she did, it was certainly strange that she should not have

heard of any offer made to her uncle and aunt for her hand. Surely the
mothers of marriageable sons knew of her existence, of her fortune, of
the titles she held in her own right and could confer upon her husband
and leave to her children. It was not natural that no one should wish to
marry her, that no mother should desire such an heiress for her son.
With the distrustful introspection of maiden youth, she suddenly asked
herself whether by any possibility she were different from other girls
and whether she had not some strange defect, physical or mental, of
which the existence had been most carefully concealed from her all her
life. In the quick impulse she rose and brought all the burning candles
to the toilet table, and lighted others, and stood before the mirror, in the
yellow light, gazing most critically at her own reflexion. She looked
long and earnestly and quite without vanity. She told herself,
cataloguing her looks, that her hair was neither black nor brown, but
that it was very thick and long and waved naturally; that her eyes were
very dark, with queer little angles just above the lids, under the
prominent brows; that her nose, seen in full face, looked very straight
and rather small, though she had been told by the girls in the convent
that it was aquiline and pointed; that her cheeks were thin and almost
colourless; that her chin was round and smooth and prominent, her lips
rather dark than red, and modelled in a high curve; that her ears were
very small--she threw back the heavy hair to see them better, turning
her face sideways to the glass; that her throat was over-slender, and her
neck and arms far too thin for beauty, but with a young leanness which
might improve with time, though nothing could ever make them white.
She was dark, on the whole. She was willing to admit that she was
sallow, that her eyes had a rather sad look in them, and even that one
was almost imperceptibly larger than the other, though the difference
was so small that she had never noticed it before, and it might be due to
the uncertain light of the candles in the dim room. But most assuredly
there was no physical defect to be seen. She was not beautiful like poor
Bianca Corleone; but she was far from ugly--that was certain.
And in mind--she laughed as she looked at herself in the glass. Bosio
Macomer told her that she was clever, and he certainly knew. But her
own expression pleased her when she laughed, and she laughed again

with pleasure, and watched herself in a sort of girlish and innocent
satisfaction. Then her eyes met their own reflexion, and she grew
suddenly grave again, and something in them told her that they were
not laughing with her lips, and might not often look upon things
mirthful.
But she was not stupid, and she was not ugly. She had assured herself
of that. The worst that could be said was that she was a very thin girl
and that her complexion was not brilliant, though it was healthy enough,
and clear. No--there was certainly no reason why her aunt should not
have received offers of marriage for her, and many people would have
thought it strange that she should be still unmarried--with her looks, her
name, and that great fortune of which Gregorio Macomer was taking
such good care.

CHAPTER II.
On that same night, when Veronica had gone to her room, Bosio
Macomer remained alone with the countess in the small drawing-room
in which the family generally spent the evening. Gregorio was
presumably in his study, busy with his perpetual accounts or otherwise
occupied. He very often spent the hours between dinner and bed-time
by himself, leaving his