He held out his hand to help her, but she refused it by a gesture and hurried on.
"I have been speaking with your mother," he said, trying to take advantage of the thirty or forty yards that still remained to be traversed.
"So I suppose, as I left you together," she answered in a hard voice.

"I have been talking to Ruggiero." "Has anything displeased you, Beatrice ?" asked San Miniato, surprised by her manner.
"No.

Why do you call me Beatrice ?" Her tone was colder than ever.
"I suppose I might be permitted--" "You are not." San Miniato looked at her in amazement, but they were already within earshot of the Marchesa, who had not moved from her long chair, and he did not risk anything more, not knowing what sort of answer he might get.

But he was no novice, and as soon as he thought over the situation he remembered others similar to it in his experience, and he understood well enough that a sensitive young girl might feel ashamed of having shown too much feeling, or might have taken offence at some detail in his conduct which had entirely escaped his own notice.

Young and vivacious women are peculiarly subject to this sort of sensitiveness, as he was well aware.