Music, dancing, lights and heat are to a woman
of the world what strong drinks are to a normal man; they may not
intoxicate, but they change the humour. Fortunately for San Miniato the
young lady whom he wished to marry was not just at present exposed to
the action of those stimulants, and her moods were tolerably even. If he
had been at all eloquent, the same style of eloquence would have done
almost as well after dinner as after breakfast. But the secret springs
of love speech were dried up in his brain by the haunting consciousness
that much was expected of him. He had never before thought of marrying
and had not yet in his life found himself for any length of time
constantly face to face in conversation with a young girl, with
limitations of propriety and the fear of failure before his eyes. The
situation was new and uncomfortable. He felt like a man who has got a
hat which does not belong to him, which does not fit him and which will
not stay on his head in a high wind. The consequence was that his talk
lacked interest, and that he often did not talk at all. Nevertheless, he
managed to show enough assiduity to keep himself continually in the
foreground of Beatrice's thoughts.
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