Ruggiero's heart stood still--not for the first time that day. Would she
speak the three syllables or not?
As for San Miniato, his excitement had cooled, and he threw all the
tenderness he could muster into, his last request, with instinctive tact
returning to the more quiet tone he had used at the beginning of the
conversation.
"I ask you, Beatrice mia, to say--" he paused, to give the proper effect
in the right place--"I love you," he said, completing the sentence very
musically and looking up most tenderly into her eyes.
She sighed, blushed again, and turned her head away. Then quite suddenly
she looked at him once more, pressed his hand nervously and spoke.
"I love you, carissimo," she said, and rose at the same moment from her
seat. "Come--it is time. Mamma will be tired," she added, while he held
her hand and pressed it to his lips.
Her confusion had made it easy for him. He would have had difficulty in
ending the scene artistically if she had not unconsciously helped him.
Ruggiero clenched his hands a little tighter and tried not to breathe.
"It is a lie," he said in his heart, but his lips never moved, nor did
he stir a limb as he listened to the departing footsteps on the ledge
above.
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