As for the Marchesa, she was either too wise, or too lazy, to answer her daughter for the present and she slowly fanned herself, lying quite still in her long chair, her eyes half closed and her left hand hanging down beside her.
Indeed Beatrice, instead of becoming more reconciled with the situation she had accepted, was growing more impatient and unhappy every day, as she realised all that her marriage with San Miniato would mean during the rest of her natural life.

She had quite changed her mind about him, and with natures like hers such sudden changes are often irrevocable.
She could not now understand how she could have ever liked him, or found pleasure in his society, and when she thought of the few words she had spoken and which had decided her fate, she could not comprehend the state of mind which had led her into such a piece of folly, and she was as angry with herself as, for the time being, she was angry with all the world besides.
She saw, too, and for the first time, how lonely she was in the world, and a deep and burning longing for real love and sympathy took possession of her.

She had friends, of course, as young girls have, of much her own age and not unlike her in their inexperienced ideas of life.

But there was not one of them at Sorrento, nor had she met any one among the many acquaintances she had made, to whom she would care to turn.

Even her own intimate associates from childhood, who were far away in Sicily, or travelling elsewhere, would not have satisfied her.