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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Don Orsino, by F. Marion Crawford
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Don Orsino
+
+Author: F. Marion Crawford
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2004 [EBook #13218]
+[Last updated: December 22, 2015]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON ORSINO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+DON ORSINO
+
+
+BY
+
+F. MARION CRAWFORD
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE THREE FATES," "ZOROASTER," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "SARACINESCA,"
+ETC.
+
+
+NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
+
+1891, MACMILLAN AND CO.
+
+Reprinted January, April, December, 1893; June, 1894; January, November,
+1895; June, 1896, January, 1898, June, 1899; July, 1901 June, 1903;
+June, 1905; January, 1907.
+
+
+_Fifty-sixth Thousand_
+
+
+Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+DON ORSINO.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Don Orsino Saracinesca is of the younger age and lives in the younger
+Rome, with his father and mother, under the roof of the vast old palace
+which has sheltered so many hundreds of Saracinesca in peace and war,
+but which has rarely in the course of the centuries been the home of
+three generations at once during one and twenty years.
+
+The lover of romance may lie in the sun, caring not for the time of day
+and content to watch the butterflies that cross his blue sky on the way
+from one flower to another. But the historian is an entomologist who
+must be stirring. He must catch the moths, which are his facts, in the
+net which is his memory, and he must fasten them upon his paper with
+sharp pins, which are dates.
+
+By far the greater number of old Prince Saracinesca's contemporaries are
+dead, and more or less justly forgotten. Old Valdarno died long ago in
+his bed, surrounded by sons and daughters. The famous dandy of other
+days, the Duke of Astrardente, died at his young wife's feet some three
+and twenty years before this chapter of family history opens. Then the
+primeval Prince Montevarchi came to a violent end at the hands of his
+librarian, leaving his English princess consolable but unconsoled,
+leaving also his daughter Flavia married to that other Giovanni
+Saracinesca who still bears the name of Marchese di San Giacinto; while
+the younger girl, the fair, brown-eyed Faustina, loved a poor
+Frenchman, half soldier and all artist. The weak, good-natured Ascanio
+Bellegra reigns in his father's stead, the timidly extravagant master of
+all that wealth which the miser's lean and crooked fingers had consigned
+to a safe keeping. Frangipani too, whose son was to have married
+Faustina, is gone these many years, and others of the older and graver
+sort have learned the great secret from the lips of death.
+
+But there have been other and greater deaths, beside which the mortality
+of a whole society of noblemen sinks into insignificance. An empire is
+dead and another has arisen in the din of a vast war, begotten in
+bloodshed, brought forth in strife, baptized with fire. The France we
+knew is gone, and the French Republic writes "Liberty, Fraternity,
+Equality" in great red letters above the gate of its habitation, which
+within is yet hung with mourning. Out of the nest of kings and princes
+and princelings, and of all manner of rulers great and small, rises the
+solitary eagle of the new German Empire and hangs on black wings between
+sky and earth, not striking again, but always ready, a vision of armed
+peace, a terror, a problem--perhaps a warning.
+
+Old Rome is dead, too, never to be old Rome again. The last breath has
+been breathed, the aged eyes are closed for ever, corruption has done
+its work, and the grand skeleton lies bleaching upon seven hills, half
+covered with the piecemeal stucco of a modern architectural body. The
+result is satisfactory to those who have brought it about, if not to the
+rest of the world. The sepulchre of old Rome is the new capital of
+united Italy.
+
+The three chief actors are dead also--the man of heart, the man of
+action and the man of wit, the good, the brave and, the cunning, the
+Pope, the King and the Cardinal--Pius the Ninth, Victor Emmanuel the
+Second, Giacomo Antonelli. Rome saw them all dead.
+
+In a poor chamber of the Vatican, upon a simple bed, beside which burned
+two waxen torches in the cold morning light, lay the body of the man
+whom none had loved and many had feared, clothed in the violet robe of
+the cardinal-deacon. The keen face was drawn up on one side with a
+strange look of mingled pity and contempt. The delicate, thin hands were
+clasped together on the breast. The chilly light fell upon the dead
+features, the silken robe and the stone floor. A single servant in a
+shabby livery stood in a corner, smiling foolishly, while the tears
+stood in his eyes and wet his unshaven cheeks. Perhaps he cared, as
+servants will, when no one else cares. The door opened almost directly
+upon a staircase and the noise of the feet of those passing up and down
+upon the stone steps disturbed the silence in the death chamber. At
+night the poor body was thrust unhonoured into a common coach and driven
+out to its resting-place.
+
+In a vast hall, upon an enormous catafalque, full thirty feet above the
+floor, lay all that was left of the honest king. Thousands of wax
+candles cast their light up to the dark, shapeless face, and upon the
+military accoutrements of the uniform in which the huge body was
+clothed. A great crowd pressed to the railing to gaze their fill and go
+away. Behind the division tall troopers in cuirasses mounted guard and
+moved carelessly about. It was all tawdry, but tawdry on a magnificent
+scale--all unlike the man in whose honour it was done. For he had been
+simple and brave.
+
+When he was at last borne to his tomb in the Pantheon, a file of
+imperial and royal princes marched shoulder to shoulder down the street
+before him, and the black charger he had loved was led after him.
+
+In a dim chapel of St. Peter's lay the Pope, robed in white, the
+jewelled tiara upon his head, his white face calm and peaceful. Six
+torches burned beside him; six nobles of the guard stood like statues
+with drawn swords, three on his right hand and three on his left. That
+was all. The crowd passed in single file before the great closed gates
+of the Julian Chapel.
+
+At night he was borne reverently by loving hands to the deep crypt
+below. But at another time, at night also, the dead man was taken up
+and driven towards the gate to be buried without the walls. Then a great
+crowd assembled in the darkness and fell upon the little band and stoned
+the coffin of him who never harmed any man, and screamed out curses and
+blasphemies till all the city was astir with riot. That was the last
+funeral hymn.
+
+Old Rome is gone. The narrow streets are broad thoroughfares, the Jews'
+quarter is a flat and dusty building lot, the fountain of Ponte Sisto is
+swept away, one by one the mighty pines of Villa Ludovisi have fallen
+under axe and saw, and a cheap, thinly inhabited quarter is built upon
+the site of the enchanted garden. The network of by-ways from the
+Jesuits' church to the Sant' Angelo bridge is ploughed up and opened by
+the huge Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. Buildings which strangers used to
+search for in the shade, guide-book and map in hand, are suddenly
+brought into the blaze of light that fills broad streets and sweeps
+across great squares. The vast Cancelleria stands out nobly to the sun,
+the curved front of the Massimo palace exposes its black colonnade to
+sight upon the greatest thoroughfare of the new city, the ancient Arco
+de' Cenci exhibits its squalor in unshadowed sunshine, the Portico of
+Octavia once more looks upon the river.
+
+He who was born and bred in the Rome of twenty years ago comes back
+after a long absence to wander as a stranger in streets he never knew,
+among houses unfamiliar to him, amidst a population whose speech sounds
+strange in his ears. He roams the city from the Lateran to the Tiber,
+from the Tiber to the Vatican, finding himself now and then before some
+building once familiar in another aspect, losing himself perpetually in
+unprofitable wastes made more monotonous than the sandy desert by the
+modern builder's art. Where once he lingered in old days to glance at
+the river, or to dream of days yet older and long gone, scarce
+conscious of the beggar at his elbow and hardly seeing the half dozen
+workmen who laboured at their trades almost in the middle of the public
+way--where all was once aged and silent and melancholy and full of the
+elder memories--there, at that very corner, he is hustled and jostled by
+an eager crowd, thrust to the wall by huge, grinding, creaking carts,
+threatened with the modern death by the wheel of the modern omnibus,
+deafened by the yells of the modern newsvendors, robbed, very likely, by
+the light fingers of the modern inhabitant.
+
+And yet he feels that Rome must be Rome still. He stands aloof and gazes
+at the sight as upon a play in which Rome herself is the great heroine
+and actress. He knows the woman and he sees the artist for the first
+time, not recognising her. She is a dark-eyed, black-haired, thoughtful
+woman when not upon the stage. How should he know her in the strange
+disguise, her head decked with Gretchen's fair tresses, her olive cheek
+daubed with pink and white paint, her stately form clothed in garments
+that would be gay and girlish but which are only unbecoming? He would
+gladly go out and wait by the stage door until the performance is over,
+to see the real woman pass him in the dim light of the street lamps as
+she enters her carriage and becomes herself again. And so, in the
+reality, he turns his back upon the crowd and strolls away, not caring
+whither he goes until, by a mere accident, he finds himself upon the
+height of Sant' Onofrio, or standing before the great fountains of the
+Acqua Paola, or perhaps upon the drive which leads through the old Villa
+Corsini along the crest of the Janiculum. Then, indeed, the scene thus
+changes, the actress is gone and the woman is before him; the capital of
+modern Italy sinks like a vision into the earth out of which it was
+called up, and the capital of the world rises once more, unchanged,
+unchanging and unchangeable, before the wanderer's eyes. The greater
+monuments of greater times are there still, majestic and unmoved, the
+larger signs of a larger age stand out clear and sharp; the tomb of
+Hadrian frowns on the yellow stream, the heavy hemisphere of the
+Pantheon turns its single opening to the sky, the enormous dome of the
+world's cathedral looks silently down upon the sepulchre of the world's
+masters.
+
+Then the sun sets and the wanderer goes down again through the chilly
+evening air to the city below, to find it less modern than he had
+thought. He has found what he sought and he knows that the real will
+outlast the false, that the stone will outlive the stucco and that the
+builder of to-day is but a builder of card-houses beside the architects
+who made Rome.
+
+So his heart softens a little, or at least grows less resentful, for he
+has realised how small the change really is as compared with the first
+effect produced. The great house has fallen into new hands and the
+latest tenant is furnishing the dwelling to his taste. That is all. He
+will not tear down the walls, for his hands are too feeble to build them
+again, even if he were not occupied with other matters and hampered by
+the disagreeable consciousness of the extravagances he has already
+committed.
+
+Other things have been accomplished, some of which may perhaps endure,
+and some of which are good in themselves, while some are indifferent and
+some distinctly bad. The great experiment of Italian unity is in process
+of trial and the world is already forming its opinion upon the results.
+Society, heedless as it necessarily is of contemporary history, could
+not remain indifferent to the transformation of its accustomed
+surroundings; and here, before entering upon an account of individual
+doings, the chronicler may be allowed to say a few words upon a matter
+little understood by foreigners, even when they have spent several
+seasons in Rome and have made acquaintance with each other for the
+purpose of criticising the Romans.
+
+Immediately after the taking of the city in 1870, three distinct
+parties declared themselves, to wit, the Clericals or Blacks, the
+Monarchists or Whites, and the Republicans or Beds. All three had
+doubtless existed for a considerable time, but the wine of revolution
+favoured the expression of the truth, and society awoke one morning to
+find itself divided into camps holding very different opinions.
+
+At first the mass of the greater nobles stood together for the lost
+temporal power of the Pope, while a great number of the less important
+families followed two or three great houses in siding with the
+Royalists. The Republican idea, as was natural, found but few
+sympathisers in the highest class, and these were, I believe, in all
+cases young men whose fathers were Blacks or Whites, and most of whom
+have since thought fit to modify their opinions in one direction or the
+other. Nevertheless the Red interest was, and still is, tolerably strong
+and has been destined to play that powerful part in parliamentary life,
+which generally falls to the lot of a compact third party, where a
+fourth does not yet exist, or has no political influence, as is the case
+in Rome.
+
+For there is a fourth body in Rome, which has little political but much
+social importance. It was not possible that people who had grown up
+together in the intimacy of a close caste-life, calling each other
+"thee" and "thou," and forming the hereditary elements of a still feudal
+organisation, should suddenly break off all acquaintance and be
+strangers one to another. The brother, a born and convinced clerical,
+found that his own sister had followed her husband to the court of the
+new King. The rigid adherent of the old order met his own son in the
+street, arrayed in the garb of an Italian officer. The two friends who
+had stood side by side in good and evil case for a score of years saw
+themselves suddenly divided by the gulf which lies between a Roman
+cardinal and a Senator of the Italian Kingdom. The breach was sudden and
+great, but it was bridged for many by the invention of a fourth,
+proportional. The points of contact between White and Black became Grey,
+and a social power, politically neutral and constitutionally
+indifferent, arose as a mediator between the Contents and the
+Malcontents. There were families that had never loved the old order but
+which distinctly disliked the new, and who opened their doors to the
+adherents of both. There is a house which has become Grey out of a sort
+of superstition inspired by the unfortunate circumstances which oddly
+coincided with each movement of its members to join the new order. There
+is another, and one of the greatest, in which a very high hereditary
+dignity in the one party, still exercised by force of circumstances,
+effectually forbids the expression of a sincere sympathy with the
+opposed power. Another there is, whose members are cousins of the one
+sovereign and personal friends of the other.
+
+A further means of amalgamation has been found in the existence of the
+double embassies of the great powers. Austria, France and Spain each
+send an Ambassador to the King of Italy and an Ambassador to the Pope,
+of like state and importance. Even Protestant Prussia maintains a
+Minister Plenipotentiary to the Holy See. Russia has her diplomatic
+agent to the Vatican, and several of the smaller powers keep up two
+distinct legations. It is naturally neither possible nor intended that
+these diplomatists should never meet on friendly terms, though they are
+strictly interdicted from issuing official invitations to each other.
+Their point of contact is another grey square on the chess-board.
+
+The foreigner, too, is generally a neutral individual, for if his
+political convictions lean towards the wrong side of the Tiber his
+social tastes incline to Court balls; or if he is an admirer of Italian
+institutions, his curiosity may yet lead him to seek a presentation at
+the Vatican, and his inexplicable though recent love of feudal princedom
+may take him, card-case in hand, to that great stronghold of Vaticanism
+which lies due west of the Piazza di Venezia and due north of the
+Capitol.
+
+During the early years which followed the change, the attitude of
+society in Rome was that of protest and indignation on the one hand, of
+enthusiasm and rather brutally expressed triumph on the other. The line
+was very clearly drawn, for the adherence was of the nature of personal
+loyalty on both sides. Eight years and a half later the personal feeling
+disappeared with the almost simultaneous death of Pius IX. and Victor
+Emmanuel II. From that time the great strife degenerated by degrees into
+a difference of opinion. It may perhaps be said also that both parties
+became aware of their common enemy, the social democrat, soon after the
+disappearance of the popular King whose great individual influence was
+of more value to the cause of a united monarchy than all the political
+clubs and organisations in Italy put together. He was a strong man. He
+only once, I think, yielded to the pressure of a popular excitement,
+namely, in the matter of seizing Rome when the French troops were
+withdrawn, thereby violating a ratified Treaty. But his position was a
+hard one. He regretted the apparent necessity, and to the day of his
+death he never would sleep under the roof of Pius the Ninth's Palace on
+the Quirinal, but had his private apartments in an adjoining building.
+He was brave and generous. Such faults as he had were no burden to the
+nation and concerned himself alone. The same praise may be worthily
+bestowed upon his successor, but the personal influence is no longer the
+same, any more than that of Leo XIII. can be compared with that of Pius
+IX., though all the world is aware of the present Pope's intellectual
+superiority and lofty moral principle.
+
+Let us try to be just. The unification of Italy has been the result of a
+noble conception. The execution of the scheme has not been without
+faults, and some of these faults have brought about deplorable, even
+disastrous, consequences, such as to endanger the stability of the new
+order. The worst of these attendant errors has been the sudden
+imposition of a most superficial and vicious culture, under the name of
+enlightenment and education. The least of the new Government's mistakes
+has been a squandering of the public money, which, when considered with
+reference to the country's resources, has perhaps no parallel in the
+history of nations.
+
+Yet the first idea was large, patriotic, even grand. The men who first
+steered the ship of the state were honourable, disinterested,
+devoted--men like Minghetti, who will not soon be forgotten--loyal,
+conservative monarchists, whose thoughts were free from exaggeration,
+save that they believed almost too blindly in the power of a
+constitution to build up a kingdom, and credited their fellows almost
+too readily with a purpose as pure and blameless as their own. Can more
+be said for these? I think not. They rest in honourable graves, their
+doings live in honoured remembrance--would that there had been such
+another generation to succeed them.
+
+And having said thus much, let us return to the individuals who have
+played a part in the history of the Saracinesca. They have grown older,
+some gracefully, some under protest, some most unbecomingly.
+
+In the end of the year 1887 old Leone Saracinesca is still alive, being
+eighty-two years of age. His massive head has sunk a little between his
+slightly rounded shoulders, and his white beard is no longer cut short
+and square, but flows majestically down upon his broad breast. His step
+is slow, but firm still, and when he looks up suddenly from under his
+wrinkled lids, the fire is not even yet all gone from his eyes. He is
+still contradictory by nature, but he has mellowed like rare wine in the
+long years of prosperity and peace. When the change came in Rome he was
+in the mountains at Saracinesca, with his daughter-in-law, Corona and
+her children. His son Giovanni, generally known as Prince of Sant'
+Ilario, was among the volunteers at the last and sat for half a day upon
+his horse in the Pincio, listening to the bullets that sang over his
+head while his men fired stray shots from the parapets of the public
+garden into the road below. Giovanni is fifty-two years old, but though
+his hair is grey at the temples and his figure a trifle sturdier and
+broader than of old, he is little changed. His son, Orsino, who will
+soon be of age, overtops him by a head and shoulders, a dark youth,
+slender still, but strong and active, the chief person in this portion
+of my chronicle. Orsino has three brothers of ranging ages, of whom the
+youngest is scarcely twelve years old. Not one girl child has been given
+to Giovanni and Corona and they almost wish that one of the sturdy
+little lads had been a daughter. But old Saracinesca laughs and shakes
+his head and says he will not die till his four grandsons are strong
+enough to bear him to his grave upon their shoulders.
+
+Corona is still beautiful, still dark, still magnificent, though she has
+reached the age beyond which no woman ever goes until after death. There
+are few lines in the noble face and such as are there are not the scars
+of heart wounds. Her life, too, has been peaceful and undisturbed by
+great events these many years. There is, indeed, one perpetual anxiety
+in her existence, for the old prince is an aged man and she loves him
+dearly. The tough strength must give way some day and there will be a
+great mourning in the house of Saracinesca, nor will any mourn the dead
+more sincerely than Corona. And there is a shade of bitterness in the
+knowledge that her marvellous beauty is waning. Can she be blamed for
+that? She has been beautiful so long. What woman who has been first for
+a quarter of a century can give up her place without a sigh? But much
+has been given to her to soften the years of transition, and she knows
+that also, when she looks from her husband to her four boys.
+
+Then, too, it seems more easy to grow old when she catches a glimpse
+from time to time of Donna Tullia Del Ferice, who wears her years
+ungracefully, and who was once so near to becoming Giovanni
+Saracinesca's wife. Donna Tullia is fat and fiery of complexion,
+uneasily vivacious and unsure of herself. Her disagreeable blue eyes
+have not softened, nor has the metallic tone of her voice lost its
+sharpness. Yet she should not be a disappointed woman, for Del Ferice is
+a power in the land, a member of parliament, a financier and a
+successful schemer, whose doors are besieged by parasites and his
+dinner-table by those who wear fine raiment and dwell in kings' palaces.
+Del Ferice is the central figure in the great building syndicates which
+in 1887 are at the height of their power. He juggles with millions of
+money, with miles of real estate, with thousands of workmen. He is
+director of a bank, president of a political club, chairman of half a
+dozen companies and a deputy in the chambers. But his face is
+unnaturally pale, his body is over-corpulent, and he has trouble with
+his heart. The Del Ferice couple are childless, to their own great
+satisfaction.
+
+Anastase Gouache, the great painter, is also in Rome. Sixteen years ago
+he married the love of his life, Faustina Montevarchi, in spite of the
+strong opposition of her family. But times had changed. A new law
+existed and the thrice repeated formal request for consent made by
+Faustina to her mother, freed her from parental authority and brotherly
+interference. She and her husband passed through some very lean years in
+the beginning, but fortune has smiled upon them since that. Anastase is
+very famous. His character has changed little. With the love of the
+ideal republic in his heart, he shed his blood at Mentana for the great
+conservative principle, he fired his last shot for the same cause at the
+Porta Pia on the twentieth of September 1870; a month later he was
+fighting for France under the gallant Charette--whether for France
+imperial, regal or republican he never paused to ask; he was wounded in
+fighting against the Commune, and decorated for painting the portrait of
+Gambetta, after which he returned to Rome, cursed politics and married
+the woman he loved, which was, on the whole, the wisest course he could
+have followed. He has two children, both girls, aged now respectively
+fifteen and thirteen. His virtues are many, but they do not include
+economy. Though his savings are small and he depends upon his brush, he
+lives in one wing of an historic palace and gives dinners which are
+famous. He proposes to reform and become a miser when his daughters are
+married.
+
+"Misery will be the foundation of my second manner, my angel," he says
+to his wife, when he has done something unusually extravagant.
+
+But Faustina laughs softly and winds her arm about his neck as they look
+together at the last great picture. Anastase has not grown fat. The gods
+love him and have promised him eternal youth. He can still buckle round
+his slim waist the military belt of twenty years ago, and there is
+scarcely one white thread in his black hair.
+
+San Giacinto, the other Saracinesca, who married Faustina's elder sister
+Flavia, is in process of making a great fortune, greater perhaps than
+the one so nearly thrust upon him by old Montevarchi's compact with
+Meschini the librarian and forger. He had scarcely troubled himself to
+conceal his opinions before the change of government, being by nature a
+calm, fearless man, and under the new order he unhesitatingly sided with
+the Italians, to the great satisfaction of Flavia, who foresaw years of
+dulness for the mourning party of the Blacks. He had already brought to
+Rome the two boys who remained to him from his first marriage with
+Serafina Baldi--the little girl who had been born between the other two
+children had died in infancy--and the lads had been educated at a
+military college, and in 1887 are both officers in the Italian cavalry,
+sturdy and somewhat thick-skulled patriots, but gentlemen nevertheless
+in spite of the peasant blood. They are tall fellows enough but neither
+of them has inherited the father's colossal stature, and San Giacinto
+looks with a very little envy on his young kinsman Orsino who has
+outgrown his cousins. This second marriage has brought him issue, a boy
+and a girl, and the fact that he has now four children to provide for
+has had much to do with his activity in affairs. He was among the first
+to see that an enormous fortune was to be made in the first rush for
+land in the city, and he realised all he possessed, and borrowed to the
+full extent of his credit to pay the first instalments on the land he
+bought, risking everything with the calm determination and cool judgment
+which lay at the root of his strong character. He was immensely
+successful, but though he had been bold to recklessness at the right
+moment, he saw the great crash looming in the near future, and when the
+many were frantic to buy and invest, no matter at what loss, his
+millions were in part safely deposited in national bonds, and in part as
+securely invested in solid and profitable buildings of which the rents
+are little liable to fluctuation. Brought up to know what money means,
+he is not easily carried away by enthusiastic reports. He knows that
+when the hour of fortune is at hand no price is too great to pay for
+ready capital, but he understands that when the great rush for success
+begins the psychological moment of finance is already passed. When he
+dies, if such strength as his can yield to death, he will die the
+richest man in Italy, and he will leave what is rare in Italian finance,
+a stainless name.
+
+Of one person more I must speak, who has played a part in this family
+history. The melancholy Spicca still lives his lonely life in the midst
+of the social world. He affects to be a little old-fashioned in his
+dress. His tall thin body stoops ominously and his cadaverous face is
+more grave and ascetic than ever. He is said to have been suffering from
+a mortal disease these fifteen years, but still he goes everywhere,
+reads everything and knows every one. He is between sixty and seventy
+years old, but no one knows his precise age. The foils he once used so
+well hang untouched and rusty above his fireplace, but his reputation
+survives the lost strength of his supple wrist, and there are few in
+Rome, brave men or hairbrained youths, who would willingly anger him
+even now. He is still the great duellist of his day; the emaciated
+fingers might still find their old grip upon a sword hilt, the long,
+listless arm might perhaps once more shoot out with lightning speed, the
+dull eye might once again light up at the clash of steel. Peaceable,
+charitable when none are at hand to see him give, gravely gentle now in
+manner, Count Spicca is thought dangerous still. But he is indeed very
+lonely in his old age, and if the truth be told his fortune seems to
+have suffered sadly of late years, so that he rarely leaves Rome, even
+in the hot summer, and it is very long since he spent six weeks in Paris
+or risked a handful of gold at Monte Carlo. Yet his life is not over,
+and he has still a part to play, for his own sake and for the sake of
+another, as shall soon appear more clearly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Orsino Saracinesca's education was almost completed. It had been of the
+modern kind, for his father had early recognised that it would be a
+disadvantage to the young man in after life if he did not follow the
+course of study and pass the examinations required of every Italian
+subject who wishes to hold office in his own country. Accordingly,
+though he had not been sent to public schools, Orsino had been regularly
+entered since his childhood for the public examinations and had passed
+them all in due order, with great difficulty and indifferent credit.
+After this preliminary work he had been at an English University for
+four terms, not with any view to his obtaining a degree after completing
+the necessary residence, but in order that he might perfect himself in
+the English language, associate with young men of his own age and
+social standing, though of different nationality, and acquire that final
+polish which is so highly valued in the human furniture of society's
+temples.
+
+Orsino was not more highly gifted as to intelligence than many young men
+of his age and class. Like many of them he spoke English admirably,
+French tolerably, and Italian with a somewhat Roman twang. He had
+learned a little German and was rapidly forgetting it again; Latin and
+Greek had been exhibited to him as dead languages, and he felt no more
+inclination to assist in their resurrection than is felt by most boys in
+our day. He had been taught geography in the practical, continental
+manner, by being obliged to draw maps from memory. He had been
+instructed in history, not by parallels, but as it were by tangents, a
+method productive of odd results, and he had advanced just far enough in
+the study of mathematics to be thoroughly confused by the terms
+"differentiation" and "integration." Besides these subjects, a multitude
+of moral and natural sciences had been made to pass in a sort of
+panorama before his intellectual vision, including physics, chemistry,
+logic, rhetoric, ethics and political economy, with a view to
+cultivating in him the spirit of the age. The Ministry of Public
+Instruction having decreed that the name of God shall be for ever
+eliminated from all modern books in use in Italian schools and
+universities, Orsino's religious instruction had been imparted at home
+and had at least the advantage of being homogeneous.
+
+It must not be supposed that Orsino's father and mother were satisfied
+with this sort of education. But it was not easy to foresee what social
+and political changes might come about before the boy reached mature
+manhood. Neither Giovanni nor his wife were of the absolutely
+"intransigent" way of thinking. They saw no imperative reason to prevent
+their sons from joining at some future time in the public life of their
+country, though they themselves preferred not to associate with the
+party at present in power. Moreover Giovanni Saracinesca saw that the
+abolition of primogeniture had put an end to hereditary idleness, and
+that although his sons would be rich enough to do nothing if they
+pleased, yet his grandchildren would probably have to choose between
+work and genteel poverty, if it pleased the fates to multiply the race.
+He could indeed leave one half of his wealth intact to Orsino, but the
+law required that the other half should be equally divided among all;
+and as the same thing would take place in the second generation, unless
+a reactionary revolution intervened, the property would before long be
+divided into very small moieties indeed. For Giovanni had no idea of
+imposing celibacy upon his younger sons, still less of exerting any
+influence he possessed to make them enter the Church. He was too broad
+in his views for that. They promised to turn out as good men in a
+struggle as the majority of those who would be opposed to them in life,
+and they should fight their own battles unhampered by parental authority
+or caste prejudice.
+
+Many years earlier Giovanni had expressed his convictions in regard to
+the change of order then imminent. He had said that he would fight as
+long as there was anything to fight for, but that if the change came he
+would make the best of it. He was now keeping his word. He had fought as
+far as fighting had been possible and had sincerely wished that his
+warlike career might have offered more excitement and opportunity for
+personal distinction than had been afforded him in spending an afternoon
+on horseback, listening to the singing of bullets overhead. His amateur
+soldiering was over long ago, but he was strong, brave and intelligent,
+and if he had been convinced that a second and more radical revolution
+could accomplish any good result, he would have been capable of devoting
+himself to its cause with a single-heartedness not usual in these days.
+But he was not convinced. He therefore lived a quiet life, making the
+best of the present, improving his lands and doing his best to bring up
+his sons in such a way as to give them a chance of success when the
+struggle should come. Orsino was his eldest born and the results of
+modern education became apparent in him first, as was inevitable.
+
+Orsino was at this time not quite twenty-one years of age, but the
+important day was not far distant and in order to leave a lasting
+memorial of the attaining of his majority Prince Saracinesca had decreed
+that Corona should receive a portrait of her eldest son executed by the
+celebrated Anastase Gouache. To this end the young man spent three
+mornings in every week in the artist's palatial studio, a place about as
+different from the latter's first den in the Via San Basilio as the
+Basilica of Saint Peter is different from a roadside chapel in the
+Abruzzi. Those who have seen the successful painter of the nineteenth
+century in his glory will have less difficulty in imagining the scene of
+Gouache's labours than the writer finds in describing it. The workroom
+is a hall, the ceiling is a vault thirty feet high, the pavement is of
+polished marble; the light enters by north windows which would not look
+small in a good-sized church, the doors would admit a carriage and pair,
+the tapestries upon the walls would cover the front of a modern house.
+Everything is on a grand scale, of the best period, of the most genuine
+description. Three or four originals of great masters, of Titian, of
+Reubens, of Van Dyck, stand on huge easels in the most favourable
+lights. Some scores of matchless antique fragments, both of bronze and
+marble, are placed here and there upon superb carved tables and shelves
+of the sixteenth century. The only reproduction visible in the place is
+a very perfect cast of the Hermes of Olympia. The carpets are all of
+Shiraz, Sinna, Gjordez or old Baku--no common thing of Smyrna, no
+unclean aniline production of Russo-Asiatic commerce disturbs the
+universal harmony. In a full light upon the wall hangs a single silk
+carpet of wonderful tints, famous in the history of Eastern collections,
+and upon it is set at a slanting angle a single priceless Damascus
+blade--a sword to possess which an Arab or a Circassian would commit
+countless crimes. Anastase Gouache is magnificent in all his tastes and
+in all his ways. His studio and his dwelling are his only estate, his
+only capital, his only wealth, and he does not take the trouble to
+conceal the fact. The very idea of a fixed income is as distasteful to
+him as the possibility of possessing it is distant and visionary. There
+is always money in abundance, money for Faustina's horses and carriages,
+money for Gouache's select dinners, money for the expensive fancies of
+both. The paint pot is the mine, the brush is the miner's pick, and the
+vein has never failed, nor the hand trembled in working it. A golden
+youth, a golden river flowing softly to the red gold sunset of the
+end--that is life as it seems to Anastase and Faustina.
+
+On the morning which opens this chronicle, Anastase was standing before
+his canvas, palette and brushes in hand, considering the nature of the
+human face in general and of young Orsino's face in particular.
+
+"I have known your father and mother for centuries," observed the
+painter with a fine disregard of human limitations. "Your father is the
+brown type of a dark man, and your mother is the olive type of a dark
+woman. They are no more alike than a Red Indian and an Arab, but you are
+like both. Are you brown or are you olive, my friend? That is the
+question. I would like to see you angry, or in love, or losing at play.
+Those things bring out the real complexion."
+
+Orsino laughed and showed a remarkably solid set of teeth. But he did
+not find anything to say.
+
+"I would like to know the truth about your complexion," said Anastase,
+meditatively.
+
+"I have no particular reason for being angry," answered Orsino, "and I
+am not in love--"
+
+"At your age! Is it possible!"
+
+"Quite. But I will play cards with you if you like," concluded the young
+man.
+
+"No," returned the other. "It would be of no use. You would win, and if
+you happened to win much, I should be in a diabolical scrape. But I wish
+you would fall in love. You should see how I would handle the green
+shadows under your eyes."
+
+"It is rather short notice."
+
+"The shorter the better. I used to think that the only real happiness in
+life lay in getting into trouble, and the only real interest in getting
+out."
+
+"And have you changed your mind?"
+
+"I? No. My mind has changed me. It is astonishing how a man may love his
+wife under favourable circumstances."
+
+Anastase laid down his brushes and lit a cigarette. Reubens would have
+sipped a few drops of Rhenish from a Venetian glass. Teniers would have
+lit a clay pipe. Duerer would perhaps have swallowed a pint of Nueremberg
+beer, and Greuse or Mignard would have resorted to their snuff-boxes. We
+do not know what Michelangelo or Perugino did under the circumstances,
+but it is tolerably evident that the man of the nineteenth century
+cannot think without talking and cannot talk without cigarettes.
+Therefore Anastase began to smoke and Orsino, being young and imitative,
+followed his example.
+
+"You have been an exceptionally fortunate man," remarked the latter, who
+was not old enough to be anything but cynical in his views of life.
+
+"Do you think so? Yes--I have been fortunate. But I do not like to think
+that my happiness has been so very exceptional. The world is a good
+place, full of happy people. It must be--otherwise purgatory and hell
+would be useless institutions."
+
+"You do not suppose all people to be good as well as happy then," said
+Orsino with a laugh.
+
+"Good? What is goodness, my friend? One half of the theologians tell us
+that we shall be happy if we are good and the other half assure us that
+the only way to be good is to abjure earthly happiness. If you will
+believe me, you will never commit the supreme error of choosing between
+the two methods. Take the world as it is, and do not ask too many
+questions of the fates. If you are willing to be happy, happiness will
+come in its own shape."
+
+Orsino's young face expressed rather contemptuous amusement. At twenty,
+happiness is a dull word, and satisfaction spells excitement.
+
+"That is the way people talk," he said. "You have got everything by
+fighting for it, and you advise me to sit still till the fruit drops
+into my mouth."
+
+"I was obliged to fight. Everything comes to you naturally--fortune,
+rank--everything, including marriage. Why should you lift a hand?"
+
+"A man cannot possibly be happy who marries before he is thirty years
+old," answered Orsino with conviction. "How do you expect me to occupy
+myself during the next ten years?"
+
+"That is true," Gouache replied, somewhat thoughtfully, as though the
+consideration had not struck him.
+
+"If I were an artist, it would be different."
+
+"Oh, very different. I agree with you." Anastase smiled good-humouredly.
+
+"Because I should have talent--and a talent is an occupation in itself."
+
+"I daresay you would have talent," Gouache answered, still laughing.
+
+"No--I did not mean it in that way--I mean that when a man has a talent
+it makes him think of something besides himself."
+
+"I fancy there is more truth in that remark than either you or I would
+at first think," said the painter in a meditative tone.
+
+"Of course there is," returned the youthful philosopher, with more
+enthusiasm than he would have cared to show if he had been talking to a
+woman. "What is talent but a combination of the desire to do and the
+power to accomplish? As for genius, it is never selfish when it is at
+work."
+
+"Is that reflection your own?"
+
+"I think so," answered Orsino modestly. He was secretly pleased that a
+man of the artist's experience and reputation should be struck by his
+remark.
+
+"I do not think I agree with you," said Gouache.
+
+Orsino's expression changed a little. He was disappointed, but he said
+nothing.
+
+"I think that a great genius is often ruthless. Do you remember how
+Beethoven congratulated a young composer after the first performance of
+his opera? 'I like your opera--I will write music to it.' That was a
+fine instance of unselfishness, was it not. I can see the young man's
+face--" Anastase smiled.
+
+"Beethoven was not at work when he made the remark," observed Orsino,
+defending himself.
+
+"Nor am I," said Gouache, taking up his brushes again. "If you will
+resume the pose--so--thoughtful but bold--imagine that you are already
+an ancestor contemplating posterity from the height of a nobler age--you
+understand. Try and look as if you were already framed and hanging in
+the Saracinesca gallery between a Titian and a Giorgione."
+
+Orsino resumed his position and scowled at Anastase with a good will.
+
+"Not quite such a terrible frown, perhaps," suggested the latter. "When
+you do that, you certainly look like the gentleman who murdered the
+Colonna in a street brawl--I forget how long ago. You have his portrait.
+But I fancy the Princess would prefer--yes--that is more natural. You
+have her eyes. How the world raved about her twenty years ago--and raves
+still, for that matter."
+
+"She is the most beautiful woman in the world," said Orsino. There was
+something in the boy's unaffected admiration of his mother which
+contrasted pleasantly with his youthful affectation of cynicism and
+indifference. His handsome face lighted up a little, and the painter
+worked rapidly.
+
+But the expression was not lasting. Orsino was at the age when most
+young men take the trouble to cultivate a manner, and the look of
+somewhat contemptuous gravity which he had lately acquired was already
+becoming habitual. Since all men in general have adopted the fashion of
+the mustache, youths who are still waiting for the full crop seem to
+have difficulty in managing their mouths. Some draw in their lips with
+that air of unnatural sternness observable in rough weather among
+passengers on board ship, just before they relinquish the struggle and
+retire from public life. Others contract their mouths to the shape of a
+heart, while there are yet others who lose control of the pendant lower
+lip and are content to look like idiots, while expecting the hairy
+growth which is to make them look like men. Orsino had chosen the least
+objectionable idiosyncrasy and had elected to be of a stern countenance.
+When he forgot himself he was singularly handsome, and Gouache lay in
+wait for his moments of forgetfulness.
+
+"You are quite right," said the Frenchman. "From the classic point of
+view your mother was and is the most beautiful dark woman in the world.
+For myself--well in the first place, you are her son, and secondly I am
+an artist and not a critic. The painter's tongue is his brush and his
+words are colours."
+
+"What were you going to say about my mother?" asked Orsino with some
+curiosity.
+
+"Oh--nothing. Well, if you must hear it, the Princess represents my
+classical ideal, but not my personal ideal. I have admired some one else
+more."
+
+"Donna Faustina?" enquired Orsino.
+
+"Ah well, my friend--she is my wife, you see. That always makes a great
+difference in the degree of admiration--"
+
+"Generally in the opposite direction," Orsino observed in a tone of
+elderly unbelief.
+
+Gouache had just put his brush into his mouth and held it between his
+teeth as a poodle carries a stick, while he used his thumb on the
+canvas. The modern painter paints with everything, not excepting his
+fingers. He glanced at his model and then at his work, and got his
+effect before he answered.
+
+"You are very hard upon marriage," he said quietly. "Have you tried it?"
+
+"Not yet. I will wait as long as possible, before I do. It is not every
+one who has your luck."
+
+"There was something more than luck in my marriage. We loved each other,
+it is true, but there were difficulties--you have no idea what
+difficulties there were. But Faustina was brave and I caught a little
+courage from her. Do you know that when the Serristori barracks were
+blown up she ran out alone to find me merely because she thought I might
+have been killed? I found her in the ruins, praying for me. It was
+sublime."
+
+"I have heard that. She was very brave--"
+
+"And I a poor Zouave--and a poorer painter. Are there such women
+nowadays? Bah! I have not known them. We used to meet at churches and
+exchange two words while her maid was gone to get her a chair. Oh, the
+good old time! And then the separations--the taking of Rome, when the
+old Princess carried all the family off to England and stayed there
+while we were fighting for poor France--and the coming back and the
+months of waiting, and the notes dropped from her window at midnight and
+the great quarrel with her family when we took advantage of the new law.
+And then the marriage itself--what a scandal in Rome! But for the
+Princess, your mother, I do not know what we should have done. She
+brought Faustina to the church and drove us to the station in her own
+carriage--in the face of society. They say that Ascanio Bellegra hung
+about the door of the church while we were being married, but he had not
+the courage to come in, for fear of his mother. We went to Naples and
+lived on salad and love--and we had very little else for a year or two.
+I was not much known, then, except in Rome, and Roman society refused to
+have its portrait painted by the adventurer who had run away with a
+daughter of Casa Montevarchi. Perhaps, if we had been rich, we should
+have hated each other by this time. But we had to live for each other in
+those days, for every one was against us. I painted, and she kept
+house--that English blood is always practical in a desert. And it was a
+desert. The cooking--it would have made a billiard ball's hair stand on
+end with astonishment. She made the salad, and then evolved the roast
+from the inner consciousness. I painted a chaudfroid on an old plate. It
+was well done--the transparent quality of the jelly and the delicate
+ortolans imprisoned within, imploring dissection. Well, must I tell you?
+We threw it away. It was martyrdom. Saint Anthony's position was
+enviable compared with ours. Beside us that good man would have seemed
+but a humbug. Yet we lived through it all. I repeat it. We lived, and we
+were happy. It is amazing, how a man may love his wife."
+
+Anastase had told his story with many pauses, working hard while he
+spoke, for though he was quite in earnest in all he said, his chief
+object was to distract the young man's attention, so as to bring out his
+natural expression. Having exhausted one of the colours he needed, he
+drew back and contemplated his work. Orsino seemed lost in thought.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" asked the painter.
+
+"Do you think I am too old to become an artist?" enquired the young man.
+
+"You? Who knows? But the times are too old. It is the same thing."
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"You are in love with the life--not with the profession. But the life is
+not the same now, nor the art either. Bah! In a few years I shall be out
+of fashion. I know it. Then we will go back to first principles. A
+garret to live in, bread and salad for dinner. Of course--what do you
+expect? That need not prevent us from living in a palace as long as we
+can."
+
+Thereupon Anastase Gouache hummed a very lively little song as he
+squeezed a few colours from the tubes. Orsino's face betrayed his
+discontentment.
+
+"I was not in earnest," he said. "At least, not as to becoming an
+artist. I only asked the question to be sure that you would answer it
+just as everybody answers all questions of the kind--by discouraging my
+wish do anything for myself."
+
+"Why should you do anything? You are so rich!"
+
+"What everybody says! Do you know what we rich men, or we men who are to
+be rich, are expected to be? Farmers. It is not gay."
+
+"It would be my dream--pastoral, you know--Normandy cows, a river with
+reeds, perpetual Angelus, bread and milk for supper. I adore milk. A
+nymph here and there--at your age, it is permitted. My dear friend, why
+not be a farmer?"
+
+Orsino laughed a little, in spite of himself.
+
+"I suppose that is an artist's idea of farming."
+
+"As near the truth as a farmer's idea of art, I daresay," retorted
+Gouache.
+
+"We see you paint, but you never see us at work. That is the
+difference--but that is not the question. Whatever I propose, I get the
+same answer. I imagine you will permit me to dislike farming as a
+profession."
+
+"For the sake of argument, only," said Gouache gravely.
+
+"Good. For the sake of argument. We will suppose that I am myself in all
+respects what I am, excepting that I am never to have any land, and only
+enough money to buy cigarettes. I say, 'Let me take a profession. Let me
+be a soldier.' Every one rises up and protests against the idea of a
+Saracinesca serving in the Italian army. Why? Remember that your father
+was a volunteer officer under Pope Pius Ninth.' It is comic. He spent an
+afternoon on the Pincio for his convictions, and then retired into
+private life. 'Let me serve in a foreign army--France, Austria, Russia,
+I do not care.' They are more horrified than ever. 'You have not a spark
+of patriotism! To serve a foreign power! How dreadful! And as for the
+Russians, they are all heretics.' Perhaps they are. I will try
+diplomacy. 'What? Sacrifice your convictions? Become the blind
+instrument of a scheming, dishonest ministry? It is unworthy of a
+Saracinesca!' I will think no more about it. Let me be a lawyer and
+enter public life. 'A lawyer indeed! Will you wrangle in public with
+notaries' sons, defend murderers and burglars, and take fees like the
+old men who write letters for the peasants under a green umbrella in
+the street? It would be almost better to turn musician and give
+concerts.' 'The Church, perhaps?' I suggest. 'The Church? Are you not
+the heir, and will you not be the head of the family some day? You must
+be mad.' 'Then give me a sum of money and let me try my luck with my
+cousin San Giacinto.' 'Business? If you make money it is a degradation,
+and with these new laws you cannot afford to lose it. Besides, you will
+have enough of business when you have to manage your estates.' So all my
+questions are answered, and I am condemned at twenty to be a farmer for
+my natural life. I say so. 'A farmer, forsooth! Have you not the world
+before you? Have you not received the most liberal education? Are you
+not rich? How can you take such a narrow view! Come out to the Villa and
+look at those young thoroughbreds, and afterwards we will drop in at the
+club before dinner. Then there is that reception at the old Principessa
+Befana's to-night, and the Duchessa della Seccatura is also at home.'
+That is my life, Monsieur Gouache. There you have the question, the
+answer and the result. Admit that it is not gay."
+
+"It is very serious, on the contrary," answered Gouache who had listened
+to the detached Jeremiah with more curiosity and interest than he often
+shewed.
+
+"I see nothing for it, but for you to fall in love without losing a
+single moment."
+
+Orsino laughed a little harshly.
+
+"I am in the humour, I assure you," he answered.
+
+"Well, then--what are you waiting for?" enquired Gouache, looking at
+him.
+
+"What for? For an object for my affections, of course. That is rather
+necessary under the circumstances."
+
+"You may not wait long, if you will consent to stay here another quarter
+of an hour," said Anastase with a laugh. "A lady is coming, whose
+portrait I am painting--an interesting woman--tolerably
+beautiful--rather mysterious--here she is, you can have a good look at
+her, before you make up your mind."
+
+Anastase took the half-finished portrait of Orsino from the easel and
+put another in its place, considerably further advanced in execution.
+Orsino lit a cigarette in order to quicken his judgment, and looked at
+the canvas.
+
+The picture was decidedly striking and one felt at once that it must be
+a good likeness. Gouache was evidently proud of it. It represented a
+woman, who was certainly not yet thirty years of age, in full dress,
+seated in a high, carved chair against a warm, dark background. A mantle
+of some sort of heavy, claret-coloured brocade, lined with fur, was
+draped across one of the beautiful shoulders, leaving the other bare,
+the scant dress of the period scarcely breaking the graceful lines from
+the throat to the soft white hand, of which the pointed fingers hung
+carelessly over the carved extremity of the arm of the chair. The lady's
+hair was auburn, her eyes distinctly yellow. The face was an unusual one
+and not without attraction, very pale, with a full red mouth too wide
+for perfect beauty, but well modelled--almost too well, Gouache thought.
+The nose was of no distinct type, and was the least significant feature
+in the face, but the forehead was broad and massive, the chin soft,
+prominent and round, the brows much arched and divided by a vertical
+shadow which, in the original, might be the first indication of a tiny
+wrinkle. Orsino fancied that one eye or the other wandered a very
+little, but he could not tell which--the slight defect made the glance
+disquieting and yet attractive. Altogether it was one of those faces
+which to one man say too little, and to another too much.
+
+Orsino affected to gaze upon the portrait with unconcern, but in reality
+he was oddly fascinated by it, and Gouache did not fail to see the
+truth.
+
+"You had better go away, my friend," he said, with a smile. "She will be
+here in a few minutes and you will certainly lose your heart if you see
+her."
+
+"What is her name?" asked Orsino, paying no attention to the remark.
+
+"Donna Maria Consuelo--something or other--a string of names ending in
+Aragona. I call her Madame d'Aragona for shortness, and she does not
+seem to object."
+
+"Married? And Spanish?"
+
+"I suppose so," answered Gouache. "A widow I believe. She is not Italian
+and not French, so she must be Spanish."
+
+"The name does not say much. Many people put 'd'Aragona' after their
+names--some cousins of ours, among others--they are Aranjuez
+d'Aragona--my father's mother was of that family."
+
+"I think that is the name--Aranjuez. Indeed I am sure of it, for
+Faustina remarked that she might be related to you."
+
+"It is odd. We have not heard of her being in Rome--and I am not sure
+who she is. Has she been here long?"
+
+"I have known her a month--since she first came to my studio. She lives
+in a hotel, and she comes alone, except when I need the dress and then
+she brings her maid, an odd creature who never speaks and seems to
+understand no known language."
+
+"It is an interesting face. Do you mind if I stay till she comes? We
+may really be cousins, you know."
+
+"By all means--you can ask her. The relationship would be with her
+husband, I suppose."
+
+"True. I had not thought of that; and he is dead, you say?"
+
+Gouache did not answer, for at that moment the lady's footfall was heard
+upon the marble floor, soft, quick and decided. She paused a moment in
+the middle of the room when she saw that the artist was not alone. He
+went forward to meet her and asked leave to present Orsino, with that
+polite indistinctness which leaves to the persons introduced the task of
+discovering one another's names.
+
+Orsino looked into the lady's eyes and saw that the slight peculiarity
+of the glance was real and not due to any error of Gouache's drawing. He
+recognised each feature in turn in the one look he gave at the face
+before he bowed, and he saw that the portrait was indeed very good. He
+was not subject to shyness.
+
+"We should be cousins, Madame," he said. "My father's mother was an
+Aranjuez d'Aragona."
+
+"Indeed?" said the lady with calm indifference, looking critically at
+the picture of herself.
+
+"I am Orsino Saracinesca," said the young man, watching her with some
+admiration.
+
+"Indeed?" she repeated, a shade less coldly. "I think I have heard my
+poor husband say that he was connected with your family. What do you
+think of my portrait? Every one has tried to paint me and failed, but my
+friend Monsieur Gouache is succeeding. He has reproduced my hideous nose
+and my dreadful mouth with a masterly exactness. No--my dear Monsieur
+Gouache--it is a compliment I pay you. I am in earnest. I do not want a
+portrait of the Venus of Milo with red hair, nor of the Minerva Medica
+with yellow eyes, nor of an imaginary Medea in a fur cloak. I want
+myself, just as I am. That is exactly what you are doing for me. Myself
+and I have lived so long together that I desire a little memento of the
+acquaintance."
+
+"You can afford to speak lightly of what is so precious to others," said
+Gouache, gallantly. Madame d'Aranjuez sank into the carved chair Orsino
+had occupied.
+
+"This dear Gouache--he is charming, is he not?" she said with a little
+laugh. Orsino looked at her.
+
+"Gouache is right," he thought, with the assurance of his years. "It
+would be amusing to fall in love with her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Gouache was far more interested in his work than in the opinions which
+his two visitors might entertain of each other. He looked at the lady
+fixedly, moved his easel, raised the picture a few inches higher from
+the ground and looked again. Orsino watched the proceedings from a
+little distance, debating whether he should go away or remain. Much
+depended upon Madame d'Aragona's character, he thought, and of this he
+knew nothing. Some women are attracted by indifference, and to go away
+would be to show a disinclination to press the acquaintance. Others, he
+reflected, prefer the assurance of the man who always stays, even
+without an invitation, rather than lose his chance. On the other hand a
+sitting in a studio is not exactly like a meeting in a drawing-room. The
+painter has a sort of traditional, exclusive right to his sitter's sole
+attention. The sitter, too, if a woman, enjoys the privilege of
+sacrificing one-half her good looks in a bad light, to favour the other
+side which is presented to the artist's view, and the third person, if
+there be one, has a provoking habit of so placing himself as to receive
+the least flattering impression. Hence the great unpopularity of the
+third person--or "the third inconvenience," as the Romans call him.
+
+Orsino stood still for a few moments, wondering whether either of the
+two would ask him to sit down. As they did not, he was annoyed with them
+and determined to stay, if only for five minutes. He took up his
+position, in a deep seat under the high window, and watched Madame
+d'Aragona's profile. Neither she nor Gouache made any remark. Gouache
+began to brush over the face of his picture. Orsino felt that the
+silence was becoming awkward. He began to regret that he had remained,
+for he discovered from his present position that the lady's nose was
+indeed her defective feature.
+
+"You do not mind my staying a few minutes?" he said, with a vague
+interrogation.
+
+"Ask Madame, rather," answered Gouache, brushing away in a lively
+manner. Madame said nothing, and seemed not to have heard.
+
+"Am I indiscreet?" asked Orsino.
+
+"How? No. Why should you not remain? Only, if you please, sit where I
+can see you. Thanks. I do not like to feel that some one is looking at
+me and that I cannot look at him, if I please--and as for me, I am
+nailed in my position. How can I turn my head? Gouache is very severe."
+
+"You may have heard, Madame, that a beautiful woman is most beautiful in
+repose," said Gouache.
+
+Orsino was annoyed, for he had of course wished to make exactly the same
+remark. But they were talking in French, and the Frenchman had the
+advantage of speed.
+
+"And how about an ugly woman?" asked Madame d'Aragona.
+
+"Motion is most becoming to her--rapid motion--the door," answered the
+artist.
+
+Orsino had changed his position and was standing behind Gouache.
+
+"I wish you would sit down," said the latter, after a short pause. "I
+do not like to feel that any one is standing behind me when I am at
+work. It is a weakness, but I cannot help it. Do you believe in mental
+suggestion, Madame?"
+
+"What is that?" asked Madame d'Aragona vaguely.
+
+"I always imagine that a person standing behind me when I am at work is
+making me see everything as he sees," answered Gouache, not attempting
+to answer the question.
+
+Orsino, driven from pillar to post, had again moved away.
+
+"And do you believe in such absurd superstitions?" enquired Madame
+d'Aragona with a contemptuous curl of her heavy lips. "Monsieur de
+Saracinesca, will you not sit down? You make me a little nervous."
+
+Gouache raised his finely marked eyebrows almost imperceptibly at the
+odd form of address, which betrayed ignorance either of worldly usage or
+else of Orsino's individuality. He stepped back from the canvas and
+moved a chair forward.
+
+"Sit here, Prince," he said. "Madame can see you, and you will not be
+behind me."
+
+Orsino took the proffered seat without any remark. Madame d'Aragona's
+expression did not change, though she was perfectly well aware that
+Gouache had intended to correct her manner of addressing the young man.
+The latter was slightly annoyed. What difference could it make? It was
+tactless of Gouache, he thought, for the lady might be angry.
+
+"Are you spending the winter in Rome, Madame?" he asked. He was
+conscious that the question lacked originality, but no other presented
+itself to him.
+
+"The winter?" repeated Madame d'Aragona dreamily. "Who knows? I am here
+at present, at the mercy of the great painter. That is all I know. Shall
+I be here next month, next week? I cannot tell. I know no one. I have
+never been here before. It is dull. This was my object," she added,
+after a short pause. "When it is accomplished I will consider other
+matters. I may be obliged to accompany their Royal Highnesses to Egypt
+in January. That is next month, is it not?"
+
+It was so very far from clear who the royal highnesses in question might
+be, that Orsino glanced at Gouache, to see whether he understood. But
+Gouache was imperturbable.
+
+"January, Madame, follows December," he answered. "The fact is confirmed
+by the observations of many centuries. Even in my own experience it has
+occurred forty-seven times in succession."
+
+Orsino laughed a little, and as Madame d'Aragona's eyes met his, the red
+lips smiled, without parting.
+
+"He is always laughing at me," she said pleasantly.
+
+Gouache was painting with great alacrity. The smile was becoming to her
+and he caught it as it passed. It must be allowed that she permitted it
+to linger, as though she understood his wish, but as she was looking at
+Orsino, he was pleased.
+
+"If you will permit me to say it, Madame," he observed, "I have never
+seen eyes like yours."
+
+He endeavoured to lose himself in their depths as he spoke. Madame
+d'Aragona was not in the least annoyed by the remark, nor by the look.
+
+"What is there so very unusual about my eyes?" she enquired. The smile
+grew a little more faint and thoughtful but did not disappear.
+
+"In the first place, I have never seen eyes of a golden-yellow colour."
+
+"Tigers have yellow eyes," observed Madame d'Aragona.
+
+"My acquaintance with that animal is at second hand--slight, to say the
+least."
+
+"You have never shot one?"
+
+"Never, Madame. They do not abound in Rome--nor even, I believe, in
+Albano. My father killed one when he was a young man."
+
+"Prince Saracinesca?"
+
+"Sant' Ilario. My grandfather is still alive."
+
+"How splendid! I adore strong races."
+
+"It is very interesting," observed Gouache, poking the stick of a brush
+into the eye of his picture. "I have painted three generations of the
+family, I who speak to you, and I hope to paint the fourth if Don Orsino
+here can be cured of his cynicism and induced to marry Donna--what is
+her name?" He turned to the young man.
+
+"She has none--and she is likely to remain nameless," answered Orsino
+gloomily.
+
+"We will call her Donna Ignota," suggested Madame d'Aragona.
+
+"And build altars to the unknown love," added Gouache.
+
+Madame d'Aragona smiled faintly, but Orsino persisted in looking grave.
+
+"It seems to be an unpleasant subject, Prince."
+
+"Very unpleasant, Madame," answered Orsino shortly.
+
+Thereupon Madame d'Aragona looked at Gouache and raised her brows a
+little as though to ask a question, knowing perfectly well that Orsino
+was watching her. The young man could not see the painter's eyes, and
+the latter did not betray by any gesture that he was answering the
+silent interrogation.
+
+"Then I have eyes like a tiger, you say. You frighten me. How
+disagreeable--to look like a wild beast!"
+
+"It is a prejudice," returned Orsino. "One hears people say of a woman
+that she is beautiful as a tigress."
+
+"An idea!" exclaimed Gouache, interrupting. "Shall I change the damask
+cloak to a tiger's skin? One claw just hanging over the white
+shoulder--Omphale, you know--in a modern drawing-room--a small cast of
+the Farnese Hercules upon a bracket, there, on the right. Decidedly,
+here is an idea. Do you permit, Madame!"
+
+"Anything you like--only do not spoil the likeness," answered Madame
+d'Aragona, leaning back in her chair, and looking sleepily at Orsino
+from beneath her heavy, half-closed lids.
+
+"You will spoil the whole picture," said Orsino, rather anxiously.
+
+Gouache laughed.
+
+"What harm if I do? I can restore it in five minutes--"
+
+"Five minutes!"
+
+"An hour, if you insist upon accuracy of statement," replied Gouache
+with a shade of annoyance.
+
+He had an idea, and like most people whom fate occasionally favours with
+that rare commodity he did not like to be disturbed in the realisation
+of it. He was already squeezing out quantities of tawny colours upon his
+palette.
+
+"I am a passive instrument," said Madame d'Aragona. "He does what he
+pleases. These men of genius--what would you have? Yesterday a gown from
+Worth--to-day a tiger's skin--indeed, I tremble for to-morrow."
+
+She laughed a little and turned her head away.
+
+"You need not fear," answered Gouache, daubing in his new idea with an
+enormous brush. "Fashions change. Woman endures. Beauty is eternal.
+There is nothing which may not be made becoming to a beautiful woman."
+
+"My dear Gouache, you are insufferable. You are always telling me that I
+am beautiful. Look at my nose."
+
+"Yes. I am looking at it."
+
+"And my mouth."
+
+"I look. I see. I admire. Have you any other personal observations to
+make? How many claws has a tiger, Don Orsino? Quick! I am painting the
+thing."
+
+"One less than a woman."
+
+Madame d'Aragona looked at the young man a moment, and broke into a
+laugh.
+
+"There is a charming speech. I like that better than Gouache's
+flattery."
+
+"And yet you admit that the portrait is like you," said Gouache.
+
+"Perhaps I flatter you, too."
+
+"Ah! I had not thought of that."
+
+"You should be more modest."
+
+"I lose myself--"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In your eyes, Madame. One, two, three, four--are you sure a tiger has
+only four claws? Where is the creature's thumb--what do you call it? It
+looks awkward."
+
+"The dew-claw?" asked Orsino. "It is higher up, behind the paw. You
+would hardly see it in the skin."
+
+"But a cat has five claws," said Madame d'Aragona. "Is not a tiger a
+cat? We must have the thing right, you know, if it is to be done at
+all."
+
+"Has a cat five claws?" asked Anastase, appealing anxiously to Orsino.
+
+"Of course, but you would only see four on the skin."
+
+"I insist upon knowing," said Madame d'Aragona. "This is dreadful! Has
+no one got a tiger? What sort of studio is this--with no tiger!"
+
+"I am not Sarah Bernhardt, nor the emperor of Siam," observed Gouache,
+with a laugh.
+
+But Madame d'Aragona was not satisfied.
+
+"I am sure you could procure me one, Prince," she said, turning to
+Orsino. "I am sure you could, if you would! I shall cry if I do not have
+one, and it will be your fault."
+
+"Would you like the animal alive or dead?" inquired Orsino gravely, and
+he rose from his seat.
+
+"Ah, I knew you could procure the thing!" she exclaimed with grateful
+enthusiasm. "Alive or dead, Gouache? Quick--decide!"
+
+"As you please, Madame. If you decide to have him alive, I will ask
+permission to exchange a few words with my wife and children, while some
+one goes for a priest."
+
+"You are sublime, to-day. Dead, then, if you please, Prince. Quite
+dead--but do not say that I was afraid--"
+
+"Afraid? With, a Saracinesca and a Gouache to defend your life, Madame?
+You are not serious."
+
+Orsino took his hat.
+
+"I shall be back in a quarter of an hour," he said, as he bowed and went
+out.
+
+Madame d'Aragona watched his tall young figure till he disappeared.
+
+"He does not lack spirit, your young friend," she observed.
+
+"No member of that family ever did, I think," Gouache answered. "They
+are a remarkable race."
+
+"And he is the only son?"
+
+"Oh no! He has three younger brothers."
+
+"Poor fellow! I suppose the fortune is not very large."
+
+"I have no means of knowing," replied Gouache indifferently. "Their
+palace is historic. Their equipages are magnificent. That is all that
+foreigners see of Roman families."
+
+"But you know them intimately?"
+
+"Intimately--that is saying too much. I have painted their portraits."
+
+Madame d'Aragona wondered why he was so reticent, for she knew that he
+had himself married the daughter of a Roman prince, and she concluded
+that he must know much of the Romans.
+
+"Do you think he will bring the tiger?" she asked presently.
+
+"He is quite capable of bringing a whole menagerie of tigers for you to
+choose from."
+
+"How interesting. I like men who stop at nothing. It was really
+unpardonable of you to suggest the idea and then to tell me calmly that
+you had no model for it."
+
+In the meantime Orsino had descended the stairs and was hailing a
+passing cab. He debated for a moment what he should do. It chanced that
+at that time there was actually a collection of wild beasts to be seen
+in the Prati di Castello, and Orsino supposed that the owner might be
+induced, for a large consideration, to part with one of his tigers. He
+even imagined that he might shoot the beast and bring it back in the
+cab. But, in the first place, he was not provided with an adequate sum
+of money nor did he know exactly how to lay his hand on so large a sum
+as might be necessary, at a moment's notice. He was still under age, and
+his allowance had not been calculated with a view to his buying
+menageries. Moreover he considered that even if his pockets had been
+full of bank notes, the idea was ridiculous, and he was rather ashamed
+of his youthful impulse. It occurred to him that what was necessary for
+the picture was not the carcase of the tiger but the skin, and he
+remembered that such a skin lay on the floor in his father's private
+room--the spoil of the animal Giovanni Saracinesca had shot in his
+youth. It had been well cared for and was a fine specimen.
+
+"Palazzo Saracinesca," he said to the cabman.
+
+Now it chanced, as such things will chance in the inscrutable ways of
+fate, that Sant' Ilario was just then in that very room and busy with
+his correspondence. Orsino had hoped to carry off what he wanted,
+without being questioned, in order to save time, but he now found
+himself obliged to explain his errand.
+
+Sant' Ilario looked, up in some surprise as his son entered.
+
+"Well, Orsino? Is anything the matter?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing serious, father. I want to borrow your tiger's skin for
+Gouache. Will you lend it to me?"
+
+"Of course. But what in the world does Gouache want of it? Is he
+painting you in skins--the primeval youth of the forest?"
+
+"No--not exactly. The fact is, there is a lady there. Gouache talks of
+painting her as a modern Omphale, with a tiger's skin and a cast of
+Hercules in the background--"
+
+"Hercules wore a lion's skin--not a tiger's. He killed the Nemean lion."
+
+"Did he?" inquired Orsino indifferently. "It is all the same--they do
+not know it, and they want a tiger. When I left they were debating
+whether they wanted it alive or dead. I thought of buying one at the
+Prati di Castello, but it seemed cheaper to borrow the skin of you. May
+I take it?"
+
+Sant' Ilario laughed. Orsino rolled up the great hide and carried it to
+the door.
+
+"Who is the lady, my boy?"
+
+"I never saw her before--a certain Donna Maria d'Aranjuez d'Aragona. I
+fancy she must be a kind of cousin. Do you know anything about her?"
+
+"I never heard of such a person. Is that her own name?"
+
+"No--she seems to be somebody's widow."
+
+"That is definite. What is she like?"
+
+"Passably handsome--yellow eyes, reddish hair, one eye wanders."
+
+"What an awful picture! Do not fall in love with her, Orsino."
+
+"No fear of that--but she is amusing, and she wants the tiger."
+
+"You seem to be in a hurry," observed Sant' Ilario, considerably amused.
+
+"Naturally. They are waiting for me."
+
+"Well, go as fast as you can--never keep a woman waiting. By the way,
+bring the skin back. I would rather you bought twenty live tigers at the
+Prati than lose that old thing."
+
+Orsino promised and was soon in his cab on the way to Gouache's studio,
+having the skin rolled up on his knees, the head hanging out on one side
+and the tail on the other, to the infinite interest of the people in the
+street. He was just congratulating himself on having wasted so little
+time in conversation with his father, when the figure of a tall woman
+walking towards him on the pavement, arrested his attention. His cab
+must pass close by her, and there was no mistaking his mother at a
+hundred yards' distance. She saw him too and made a sign with her
+parasol for him to stop.
+
+"Good-morning, Orsino," said the sweet deep voice.
+
+"Good-morning, mother," he answered, as he descended hat in hand, and
+kissed the gloved fingers she extended to him.
+
+He could not help thinking, as he looked at her, that she was infinitely
+more beautiful even now than Madame d'Aragona. As for Corona, it seemed
+to her that there was no man on earth to compare with her eldest son,
+except Giovanni himself, and there all comparison ceased. Their eyes met
+affectionately and it would have been, hard to say which was the more
+proud of the other, the son of his mother, or the mother of her son.
+Nevertheless Orsino was in a hurry. Anticipating all questions he told
+her in as few words as possible the nature of his errand, the object of
+the tiger's skin, and the name of the lady who was sitting to Gouache.
+
+"It is strange," said Corona. "I have never heard your father speak of
+her."
+
+"He has never heard of her either. He just told me so."
+
+"I have almost enough curiosity to get into your cab and go with you."
+
+"Do, mother." There was not much enthusiasm in the answer.
+
+Corona looked at him, smiled, and shook her head.
+
+"Foolish boy! Did you think I was in earnest? I should only spoil your
+amusement in the studio, and the lady would see that I had come to
+inspect her. Two good reasons--but the first is the better, dear. Go--do
+not keep them waiting."
+
+"Will you not take my cab? I can get another."
+
+"No. I am in no hurry. Good-bye."
+
+And nodding to him with an affectionate smile, Corona passed on, leaving
+Orsino free at last to carry the skin to its destination.
+
+When he entered the studio he found Madame d'Aragona absorbed in the
+contemplation of a piece of old tapestry which hung opposite to her,
+while Gouache was drawing in a tiny Hercules, high up in the right hand
+corner of the picture, as he had proposed. The conversation seemed to
+have languished, and Orsino was immediately conscious that the
+atmosphere had changed since he had left. He unrolled the skin as he
+entered, and Madame d'Aragona looked at it critically. She saw that the
+tawny colours would become her in the portrait and her expression grew
+more animated.
+
+"It is really very good of you," she said, with a grateful glance.
+
+"I have a disappointment in store for you," answered Orsino. "My father
+says that Hercules wore a lion's skin. He is quite right, I remember all
+about it."
+
+"Of course," said Gouache. "How could we make such a mistake!"
+
+He dropped the bit of chalk he held and looked at Madame d'Aragona.
+
+"What difference does it make?" asked the latter. "A lion--a tiger! I am
+sure they are very much alike."
+
+"After all, it is a tiresome idea," said the painter. "You will be much
+better in the damask cloak. Besides, with the lion's skin you should
+have the club--imagine a club in your hands! And Hercules should be
+spinning at your feet--a man in a black coat and a high collar, with a
+distaff! It is an absurd idea."
+
+"You should not call my ideas absurd and tiresome. It is not civil."
+
+"I thought it had been mine," observed Gouache.
+
+"Not at all. I thought of it--it was quite original."
+
+Gouache laughed a little and looked at Orsino as though asking his
+opinion.
+
+"Madame is right," said the latter. "She suggested the whole idea--by
+having yellow eyes."
+
+"You see, Gouache. I told you so. The Prince takes my view. What will
+you do?"
+
+"Whatever you command--"
+
+"But I do not want to be ridiculous--"
+
+"I do not see--"
+
+"And yet I must have the tiger."
+
+"I am ready."
+
+"Doubtless--but you must think of another subject, with a tiger in it."
+
+"Nothing easier. Noble Roman damsel--Colosseum--tiger about to
+spring--rose--"
+
+"Just heaven! What an old story! Besides, I have not the type."
+
+"The 'Mysteries of Dionysus,'" suggested Gouache. "Thyrsus, leopard's
+skin--"
+
+"A Bacchante! Fie, Monsieur--and then, the leopard, when we only have a
+tiger."
+
+"Indian princess interviewed by a man-eater--jungle--new moon--tropical
+vegetation--"
+
+"You can think of nothing but subjects for a dark type," said Madame
+d'Aragona impatiently.
+
+"The fact is, in countries where the tiger walks abroad, the women are
+generally brunettes."
+
+"I hate facts. You who are enthusiastic, can you not help us?" She
+turned to Orsino.
+
+"Am I enthusiastic?"
+
+"Yes, I am sure of it. Think of something."
+
+Orsino was not pleased. He would have preferred to be thought cold and
+impassive.
+
+"What can I say? The first idea was the best. Get a lion instead of a
+tiger--nothing is simpler."
+
+"For my part I prefer the damask cloak and the original picture," said
+Gouache with decision. "All this mythology is too complicated--too
+Pompeian--how shall I say? Besides there is no distinct allusion. A
+Hercules on a bracket--anybody may have that. If you were the Marchessa
+di San Giacinto, for instance--oh, then everyone would laugh."
+
+"Why? What is that?"
+
+"She married my cousin," said Orsino. "He is an enormous giant, and they
+say that she has tamed him."
+
+"Ah no! That would not do. Something else, please."
+
+Orsino involuntarily thought of a sphynx as he looked at the massive
+brow, the yellow, sleepy eyes, and the heavy mouth. He wondered how the
+late Aranjuez had lived and what death he had died.
+
+He offered the suggestion.
+
+"It would be appropriate," replied Madame d'Aragona. "The Sphynx in the
+Desert. Rome is a desert to me."
+
+"It only depends on you--" Orsino began.
+
+"Oh, of course! To make acquaintances, to show myself a little
+everywhere--it is simple enough. But it wearies me--until one is caught
+up in the machinery, a toothed wheel going round with the rest, one only
+bores oneself, and I may leave so soon. Decidedly it is not worth the
+trouble. Is it?"
+
+She turned her eyes to Orsino as though asking his advice. Orsino
+laughed.
+
+"How can you ask that question!" he exclaimed. "Only let the trouble be
+ours."
+
+"Ah! I said you were enthusiastic." She shook her head, and rose from
+her seat. "It is time for me to go. We have done nothing this morning,
+and it is all your fault, Prince."
+
+"I am distressed--I will not intrude upon your next sitting."
+
+"Oh--as far as that is concerned--" She did not finish the sentence, but
+took up the neglected tiger's skin from the chair on which it lay.
+
+She threw it over her shoulders, bringing the grinning head over her
+hair and holding the forepaws in her pointed white fingers. She came
+very near to Gouache and looked into his eyes, her closed lips smiling.
+
+"Admirable!" exclaimed Gouache. "It is impossible to tell where the
+woman ends and the tiger begins. Let me draw you like that."
+
+"Oh no! Not for anything in the world."
+
+She turned away quickly and dropped the skin from her shoulders.
+
+"You will not stay a little longer? You will not let me try?" Gouache
+seemed disappointed.
+
+"Impossible," she answered, putting on her hat and beginning to arrange
+her veil before a mirror.
+
+Orsino watched her as she stood, her arms uplifted, in an attitude which
+is almost always graceful, even for an otherwise ungraceful woman.
+Madame d'Aragona was perhaps a little too short, but she was justly
+proportioned and appeared to be rather slight, though the tight-fitting
+sleeves of her frock betrayed a remarkably well turned arm. Not seeing
+her face, one might not have singled her out of many as a very striking
+woman, for she had neither the stateliness of Orsino's mother, nor the
+enchanting grace which distinguished Gouache's wife. But no one could
+look into her eyes without feeling that she was very far from being an
+ordinary woman.
+
+"Quite impossible," she repeated, as she tucked in the ends of her veil
+and then turned upon the two men. "The next sitting? Whenever you
+like--to-morrow--the day after--name the time."
+
+"When to-morrow is possible, there is no choice," said Gouache, "unless
+you will come again to-day."
+
+"To-morrow, then, good-bye." She held out her hand.
+
+"There are sketches on each of my fingers, Madame--principally, of
+tigers."
+
+"Good-bye then--consider your hand shaken. Are you going, Prince?"
+
+Orsino had taken his hat and was standing beside her.
+
+"You will allow me to put you into your carriage."
+
+"I shall walk."
+
+"So much the better. Good-bye, Monsieur Gouache."
+
+"Why say, Monsieur?"
+
+"As you like--you are older than I."
+
+"I? Who has told you that legend? It is only a myth. When you are sixty
+years old, I shall still be five-and-twenty."
+
+"And I?" enquired Madame d'Aragona, who was still young enough to laugh
+at age.
+
+"As old as you were yesterday, not a day older."
+
+"Why not say to-day?"
+
+"Because to-day has a to-morrow--yesterday has none."
+
+"You are delicious, my dear Gouache. Good-bye."
+
+Madame d'Aragona went out with Orsino, and they descended the broad
+staircase together. Orsino was not sure whether he might not be showing
+too much anxiety to remain in the company of his new acquaintance, and
+as he realised how unpleasant it would be to sacrifice the walk with
+her, he endeavoured to excuse to himself his derogation from his
+self-imposed character of cool superiority and indifference. She was
+very amusing, he said to himself, and he had nothing in the world to do.
+He never had anything to do, since his education had been completed. Why
+should he not walk with Madame d'Aragona and talk to her? It would be
+better than hanging about the club or reading a novel at home. The
+hounds did not meet on that day, or he would not have been at Gouache's
+at all. But they were to meet to-morrow, and he would therefore not see
+Madame d'Aragona.
+
+"Gouache is an old friend of yours, I suppose," observed the lady.
+
+"He was a friend of my father's. He is almost a Roman. He married a
+distant connection of mine, Donna Faustina Montevarchi."
+
+"Ah yes--I have heard. He is a man of immense genius."
+
+"He is a man I envy with all my heart," said Orsino.
+
+"You envy Gouache? I should not have thought--"
+
+"No? Ah, Madame, to me a man who has a career, a profession, an
+interest, is a god."
+
+"I like that," answered Madame d'Aragona. "But it seems to me you have
+your choice. You have the world before you. Write your name upon it. You
+do not lack enthusiasm. Is it the inspiration that you need?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Orsino glancing meaningly at her as she looked at him.
+
+"That is not new," thought she, "but he is charming, all the same. They
+say," she added aloud, "that genius finds inspiration everywhere."
+
+"Alas, I am not a genius. What I ask is an occupation, and permanent
+interest. The thing is impossible, but I am not resigned."
+
+"Before thirty everything is possible," said Madame d'Aragona. She knew
+that the mere mention of so mature an age would be flattering to such a
+boy.
+
+"The objections are insurmountable," replied Orsino.
+
+"What objections? Remember that I do not know Rome, nor the Romans."
+
+"We are petrified in traditions. Spicca said the other day that there
+was but one hope for us. The Americans may yet discover Italy, as we
+once discovered America."
+
+Madame d'Aragona smiled.
+
+"Who is Spicca?" she enquired, with a lazy glance at her companion's
+face.
+
+"Spicca? Surely you have heard of him. He used to be a famous duellist.
+He is our great wit. My father likes him very much--he is an odd
+character."
+
+"There will be all the more credit in succeeding, if you have to break
+through a barrier of tradition and prejudice," said Madame d'Aragona,
+reverting rather abruptly to the first subject.
+
+"You do not know what that means." Orsino shook his head incredulously.
+"You have never tried it."
+
+"No. How could a woman be placed in such a position?"
+
+"That is just it. You cannot understand me."
+
+"That does not follow. Women often understand men--men they love or
+detest--better than men themselves."
+
+"Do you love me, Madame?" asked Orsino with a smile.
+
+"I have just made your acquaintance," laughed Madame d'Aragona. "It is a
+little too soon."
+
+"But then, according to you, if you understand me, you detest me."
+
+"Well? If I do?" She was still laughing.
+
+"Then I ought to disappear, I suppose."
+
+"You do not understand women. Anything is better than indifference.
+When you see that you are disliked, then refuse to go away. It is the
+very moment to remain. Do not submit to dislike. Revenge yourself."
+
+"I will try," said Orsino, considerably amused.
+
+"Upon me?"
+
+"Since you advise it--"
+
+"Have I said that I detest you?"
+
+"More or less."
+
+"It was only by way of illustration to my argument. I was not serious."
+
+"You have not a serious character, I fancy," said Orsino.
+
+"Do you dare to pass judgment on me after an hour's acquaintance?"
+
+"Since you have judged me! You have said five times that I am
+enthusiastic."
+
+"That is an exaggeration. Besides, one cannot say a true thing too
+often."
+
+"How you run on, Madame!"
+
+"And you--to tell me to my face that I am not serious! It is unheard of.
+Is that the way you talk to your compatriots?"
+
+"It would not be true. But they would contradict me, as you do. They
+wish to be thought gay."
+
+"Do they? I would like to know them."
+
+"Nothing is easier. Will you allow me the honour of undertaking the
+matter?"
+
+They had reached the door of Madame d'Aragona's hotel. She stood still
+and looked curiously at Orsino.
+
+"Certainly not," she answered, rather coldly. "It would be asking too
+much of you--too much of society, and far too much of me. Thanks.
+Good-bye."
+
+"May I come and see you?" asked Orsino.
+
+He knew very well that he had gone too far, and his voice was correctly
+contrite.
+
+"I daresay we shall meet somewhere," she answered, entering the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The rage of speculation was at its height in Rome. Thousands, perhaps
+hundreds of thousands of persons were embarked in enterprises which soon
+afterwards ended in total ruin to themselves and in very serious injury
+to many of the strongest financial bodies in the country. Yet it is a
+fact worth recording that the general principle upon which affairs were
+conducted was an honest one. The land was a fact, the buildings put up
+were facts, and there was actually a certain amount of capital, of
+genuine ready money, in use. The whole matter can be explained in a few
+words.
+
+The population of Rome had increased considerably since the Italian
+occupation, and house-room was needed for the newcomers. Secondly, the
+partial execution of the scheme for beautifying the city had destroyed
+great numbers of dwellings in the most thickly populated parts, and more
+house-room was needed to compensate the loss of habitations, while
+extensive lots of land were suddenly set free and offered for sale upon
+easy conditions in all parts of the town.
+
+Those who availed themselves of these opportunities before the general
+rush began, realised immense profits, especially when they had some
+capital of their own to begin with. But capital was not indispensable. A
+man could buy his lot on credit; the banks were ready to advance him
+money on notes of hand, in small amounts at high interest, wherewith to
+build his house or houses. When the building was finished the bank took
+a first mortgage upon the property, the owner let the house, paid the
+interest on the mortgage out of the rent and pocketed the difference, as
+clear gain. In the majority of eases it was the bank itself which sold
+the lot of land to the speculator. It is clear therefore that the only
+money which actually changed hands was that advanced in small sums by
+the bank itself.
+
+As the speculation increased, the banks could not of course afford to
+lock up all the small notes of hand they received from various quarters.
+This paper became a circulating medium as far as Vienna, Paris and even
+London. The crash came when Vienna, Paris and London lost faith in the
+paper, owing, in the first instance, to one or two small failures, and
+returned it upon Rome; the banks, unable to obtain cash for it at any
+price, and being short of ready money, could then no longer discount the
+speculator's further notes of hand; so that the speculator found himself
+with half-built houses upon his hands which he could neither let, nor
+finish, nor sell, and owing money upon bills which he had expected to
+meet by giving the bank a mortgage on the now valueless property.
+
+That is what took place in the majority of cases, and it is not
+necessary to go into further details, though of course chance played all
+the usual variations upon the theme of ruin.
+
+What distinguishes the period of speculation in Rome from most other
+manifestations of the kind in Europe is the prominent part played in it
+by the old land-holding families, a number of which were ruined in wild
+schemes which no sensible man of business would have touched. This was
+more or less the result of recent changes in the laws regulating the
+power of persons making a will.
+
+Previous to 1870 the law of primogeniture was as much respected in Rome
+as in England, and was carried out with considerably greater strictness.
+The heir got everything, the other children got practically nothing but
+the smallest pittance. The palace, the gallery of pictures and statues,
+the lands, the villages and the castles, descended in unbroken
+succession from eldest son to eldest son, indivisible in principle and
+undivided in fact.
+
+The new law requires that one half of the total property shall be
+equally distributed by the testator amongst all his children. He may
+leave the other half to any one he pleases, and as a matter of practice
+he of course leaves it to his eldest son.
+
+Another law, however, forbids the alienation of all collections of works
+of art either wholly or in part, if they have existed as such for a
+certain length of time, and if the public has been admitted daily or on
+any fixed days, to visit them. It is not in the power of the Borghese,
+or the Colonna, for instance, to sell a picture or a statue out of their
+galleries, nor to raise money upon such an object by mortgage or
+otherwise.
+
+Yet these works of art figure at a very high valuation, in the total
+property of which the testator must divide one half amongst his
+children, though in point of fact they yield no income whatever. But it
+is of no use to divide them, since none of the heirs could be at liberty
+to take them away nor realise their value in any manner.
+
+The consequence is, that the principal heir, after the division has
+taken place, finds himself the nominal master of certain enormously
+valuable possessions, which in reality yield him nothing or next to
+nothing. He also foresees that in the next generation the same state of
+things will exist in a far higher degree, and that the position of the
+head of the family will go from bad to worse until a crisis of some kind
+takes place.
+
+Such a case has recently occurred. A certain Roman prince is bankrupt.
+The sale of his gallery would certainly relieve the pressure, and would
+possibly free him from debt altogether. But neither he nor his creditors
+can lay a finger upon the pictures, nor raise a centime upon them. This
+man, therefore, is permanently reduced to penury, and his creditors are
+large losers, while he is still _de jure_ and _de facto_ the owner of
+property probably sufficient to cover all his obligations. Fortunately,
+he chances to be childless, a fact consoling, perhaps, to the
+philanthropist, but not especially so to the sufferer himself.
+
+It is clear that the temptation to increase "distributable" property,
+if one may coin such, an expression, is very great, and accounts for the
+way in which many Roman gentlemen have rushed headlong into speculation,
+though possessing none of the qualities necessary for success, and only
+one of the requisites, namely, a certain amount of ready money, or free
+and convertible property. A few have been fortunate, while the majority
+of those who have tried the experiment have been heavy losers. It cannot
+be said that any one of them all has shown natural talent for finance.
+
+Let the reader forgive these dry explanations if he can. The facts
+explained have a direct bearing upon the story I am telling, but shall
+not, as mere facts, be referred to again.
+
+I have already said that Ugo Del Ferice had returned to Rome soon after
+the change, had established himself with his wife, Donna Tullia, and was
+at the time I am speaking about, deeply engaged in the speculations of
+the day. He had once been, tolerably popular in society, having been
+looked upon as a harmless creature, useful in his way and very obliging.
+But the circumstances which had attended his flight some years earlier
+had become known, and most of his old acquaintances turned him the cold
+shoulder. He had expected this and was neither disappointed nor
+humiliated. He had made new friends and acquaintances during his exile,
+and it was to his interest to stand by them. Like many of those who had
+played petty and dishonourable parts in the revolutionary times, he had
+succeeded in building up a reputation for patriotism upon a very slight
+foundation, and had found persons willing to believe him a sufferer who
+had escaped martyrdom for the cause, and had deserved the crown of
+election to a constituency as a just reward of his devotion. The Romans
+cared very little what became of him. The old Blacks confounded Victor
+Emmanuel with Garibaldi, Cavour with Persiano, and Silvio Pellico with
+Del Ferice in one sweeping condemnation, desiring nothing so much as
+never to hear the hated names mentioned in their houses. The Grey
+party, being also Roman, disapproved of Ugo on general principles and
+particularly because he had been a spy, but the Whites, not being Romans
+at all and entertaining an especial detestation for every distinctly
+Roman opinion, received him at his own estimation, as society receives
+most people who live in good houses, give good dinners and observe the
+proprieties in the matter of visiting-cards. Those who knew anything
+definite of the man's antecedents were mostly persons who had little
+histories of their own, and they told no tales out of school. The great
+personages who had once employed him would have been magnanimous enough
+to acknowledge him in any case, but were agreeably disappointed when
+they discovered that he was not amongst the common herd of pension
+hunters, and claimed no substantial rewards save their politeness and a
+line in the visiting lists of their wives. And as he grew in wealth and
+importance they found that he could be useful still, as bank directors
+and members of parliament can be, in a thousand ways. So it came to pass
+that the Count and Countess Del Ferice became prominent persons in the
+Roman world.
+
+Ugo was a man of undoubted talent. By his own individual efforts, though
+with small scruple as to the means he employed, he had raised himself
+from obscurity to a very enviable position. He had only once in his life
+been carried away by the weakness of a personal enmity, and he had been
+made to pay heavily for his caprice. If Donna Tullia had abandoned him
+when he was driven out of Rome by the influence of the Saracinesca, he
+might have disappeared altogether from the scene. But she was an odd
+compound of rashness and foresight, of belief and unbelief, and she had
+at that time felt herself bound by an oath she dared not break, besides
+being attached to him by a hatred of Giovanni Saracinesca almost as
+great as his own. She had followed him and had married him without
+hesitation; but she had kept the undivided possession of her fortune
+while allowing him a liberal use of her income. In return, she claimed
+a certain liberty of action when she chose to avail herself of it. She
+would not be bound in the choice of her acquaintances nor criticised in
+the measure of like or dislike she bestowed upon them. She was by no
+means wholly bad, and if she had a harmless fancy now and then, she
+required her husband to treat her as above suspicion. On the whole, the
+arrangement worked very well. Del Ferice, on his part, was unswervingly
+faithful to her in word and deed, for he exhibited in a high degree that
+unfaltering constancy which is bred of a permanent, unalienable,
+financial interest. Bad men are often clever, but if their cleverness is
+of a superior order they rarely do anything bad. It is true that when
+they yield to the pressure of necessity their wickedness surpasses that
+of other men in the same degree as their intelligence. Not only honesty,
+but all virtue collectively, is the best possible policy, provided that
+the politician can handle such a tremendous engine of evil as goodness
+is in the hands of a thoroughly bad man.
+
+Those who desired pecuniary accommodation of the bank in which Del
+Ferice had an interest, had no better friend than he. His power with the
+directors seemed to be as boundless as his desire to assist the
+borrower. But he was helpless to prevent the foreclosure of a mortgage,
+and had been moved almost to tears in the expression of his sympathy
+with the debtor and of his horror at the hard-heartedness shown by his
+partners. To prove his disinterested spirit it only need be said that on
+many occasions he had actually come forward as a private individual and
+had taken over the mortgage himself, distinctly stating that he could
+not hold it for more than a year, but expressing a hope that the debtor
+might in that time retrieve himself. If this really happened, he earned
+the man's eternal gratitude; if not, he foreclosed indeed, but the loser
+never forgot that by Del Fence's kindness he had been offered a last
+chance at a desperate moment. It could not be said to be Del Ferice's
+fault that the second case was the more frequent one, nor that the
+result to himself was profit in either event.
+
+In his dealings with his constituency he showed a noble desire for the
+public welfare, for he was never known to refuse anything in reason to
+the electors who applied to him. It is true that in the case of certain
+applications, he consumed so much time in preliminary enquiries and
+subsequent formalities that the applicants sometimes died and sometimes
+emigrated to the Argentine Republic before the matter could be settled;
+but they bore with them to South America--or to the grave--the belief
+that the Onorevole Del Ferice was on their side, and the instances of
+his prompt, decisive and successful action were many. He represented a
+small town in the Neapolitan Province, and the benefits and advantages
+he had obtained for it were numberless. The provincial high road had
+been made to pass through it; all express trains stopped at its station,
+though the passengers who made use of the inestimable privilege did not
+average twenty in the month; it possessed a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuela, a
+Corso Garibaldi, a Via Cavour, a public garden of at least a quarter of
+an acre, planted with no less than twenty-five acacias and adorned by a
+fountain representing a desperate-looking character in the act of firing
+a finely executed revolver at an imaginary oppressor. Pigs were not
+allowed within the limits of the town, and the uniforms of the municipal
+brass band were perfectly new. Could civilisation do more? The bank of
+which Del Ferice was a director bought the octroi duties of the town at
+the periodical auction, and farmed them skilfully, together with those
+of many other towns in the same province.
+
+So Del Ferice was a very successful man, and it need scarcely be said
+that he was now not only independent of his wife's help but very much
+richer than she had ever been. They lived in a highly decorated,
+detached modern house in the new part of the city. The gilded gate
+before the little plot of garden, bore their intertwined initials,
+surmounted by a modest count's coronet. Donna Tullia would have
+preferred a coat of arms, or even a crest, but Ugo was sensitive to
+ridicule, and he was aware that a count's coronet in Rome means nothing
+at all, whereas a coat of arms means vastly more than in most cities.
+
+Within, the dwelling was somewhat unpleasantly gorgeous. Donna Tullia
+had always loved red, both for itself and because it made her own
+complexion seem less florid by contrast, and accordingly red satin
+predominated in the drawing-rooms, red velvet in the dining-room, red
+damask in the hall and red carpets on the stairs. Some fine specimens of
+gilding were also to be seen, and Del Ferice had been one of the first
+to use electric light. Everything was new, expensive and polished to its
+extreme capacity for reflection. The servants wore vivid liveries and on
+formal occasions the butler appeared in short-clothes and black silk
+stockings. Donna Tullia's equipage was visible at a great distance, but
+Del Fence's own coachman and groom wore dark green with, black
+epaulettes.
+
+On the morning which Orsino and Madame d'Aragona had spent in Gouache's
+studio the Countess Del Ferice entered her husband's study in order to
+consult him upon a rather delicate matter. He was alone, but busy as
+usual. His attention was divided between an important bank operation and
+a petition for his help in obtaining a decoration for the mayor of the
+town he represented. The claim to this distinction seemed to rest
+chiefly on the petitioner's unasked evidence in regard to his own moral
+rectitude, yet Del Ferice was really exercising all his ingenuity to
+discover some suitable reason for asking the favour. He laid the papers
+down with a sigh as Donna Tullia came in.
+
+"Good morning, my angel," he said suavely, as he pointed to a chair at
+his side--the one usually occupied at this hour by seekers for financial
+support. "Have you rested well?"
+
+He never failed to ask the question.
+
+"Not badly, not badly, thank Heaven!" answered Donna Tullia. "I have a
+dreadful cold, of course, and a headache--my head is really splitting."
+
+"Rest--rest is what you need, my dear--"
+
+"Oh, it is nothing. This Durakoff is a great man. If he had not made me
+go to Carlsbad--I really do not know. But I have something to say to
+you. I want your help, Ugo. Please listen to me."
+
+Ugo's fat white face already expressed anxious attention. To accentuate
+the expression of his readiness to listen, he now put all his papers
+into a drawer and turned towards his wife.
+
+"I must go to the Jubilee," said Donna Tullia, coming to the point.
+
+"Of course you must go--"
+
+"And I must have my seat among the Roman ladies"
+
+"Of course you must," repeated Del Ferice with a little less alacrity.
+
+"Ah! You see. It is not so easy. You know it is not. Yet I have as good
+a right to my seat as any one--better perhaps."
+
+"Hardly that," observed Ugo with a smile. "When you married me, my
+angel, you relinquished your claims to a seat at the Vatican functions."
+
+"I did nothing of the kind. I never said so, I am sure."
+
+"Perhaps if you could make that clear to the majorduomo--"
+
+"Absurd, Ugo. You know it is. Besides, I will not beg. You must get me
+the seat. You can do anything with your influence."
+
+"You could easily get into one of the diplomatic tribunes," observed
+Ugo.
+
+"I will not go there. I mean to assert myself. I am a Roman lady and I
+will have my seat, and you must get it for me."
+
+"I will do my best. But I do not quite see where I am to begin. It will
+need time and consideration and much tact."
+
+"It seems to me very simple. Go to one of the clerical deputies and say
+that you want the ticket for your wife--"
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Give him to understand that you will vote for his next measure. Nothing
+could be simpler, I am sure."
+
+Del Ferice smiled blandly at his wife's ideas of parliamentary
+diplomacy.
+
+"There are no clerical deputies in the parliament of the nation. If
+there were the thing might be possible, and it would be very interesting
+to all the clericals to read an account of the transaction in the
+Osservatore Romano. In any case, I am not sure that it will be much to
+our advantage that the wife of the Onorevole Del Ferice should be seen
+seated in the midst of the Black ladies. It will produce an unfavourable
+impression."
+
+"If you are going to talk of impressions--" Donna Tullia shrugged her
+massive shoulders.
+
+"No, my dear. You mistake me. I am not going to talk of them, because,
+as I at once told you, it is quite right that you should go to this
+affair. If you go, you must go in the proper way. No doubt there will be
+people who will have invitations but will not use them. We can perhaps
+procure you the use of such a ticket."
+
+"I do not care what name is on the paper, provided I can sit in the
+right place."
+
+"Very well," answered Del Ferice. "I will do my best."
+
+"I expect it of you, Ugo. It is not often that I ask anything of you, is
+it? It is the least you can do. The idea of getting a card that is not
+to be used is good; of course they will all get them, and some of them
+are sure to be ill."
+
+Donna Tullia went away satisfied that what she wanted would be
+forthcoming at the right moment. What she had said was true. She rarely
+asked anything of her husband. But when she did, she gave him to
+understand that she would have it at any price. It was her way of
+asserting herself from time to time. On the present occasion she had no
+especial interest at stake and any other woman might have been satisfied
+with a seat in the diplomatic tribune, which could probably have been
+obtained without great difficulty. But she had heard that the seats
+there were to be very high and she did not really wish to be placed in
+too prominent a position. The light might be unfavourable, and she knew
+that she was subject to growing very red in places where it was hot. She
+had once been a handsome woman and a very vain one, but even her vanity
+could not survive the daily shock of the looking-glass torture. To sit
+for four or five hours in a high light, facing fifty thousand people,
+was more than she could bear with equanimity.
+
+Del Ferice, being left to himself, returned to the question of the
+mayor's decoration which was of vastly greater importance to him than
+his wife's position at the approaching function. If he failed to get the
+man what he wanted, the fellow would doubtless apply to some one of the
+opposite party, would receive the coveted honour and would take the
+whole voting population of the town with him at the next general
+election, to the total discomfiture of Del Ferice. It was necessary to
+find some valid reason for proposing him for the distinction. Ugo could
+not decide what to do just then, but he ultimately hit upon a successful
+plan. He advised his correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid
+improvement of agricultural interests in his district under the existing
+ministry, and he even went so far as to enclose with his letter some
+notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous and
+complete that when the mayor had copied them he could not find a pretext
+for adding a single word or correction. They were printed upon excellent
+paper, with ornamental margins, under the title of "Onward,
+Parthenope!" Of course every one knows that Parthenope means Naples, the
+Neapolitans and the Neapolitan Province, a siren of that name having
+come to final grief somewhere between the Chiatamone and Posilippo. The
+mayor got his decoration, and Del Ferice was re-elected; but no one has
+inquired into the truth of the statements made in the pamphlet upon
+agriculture.
+
+It is clear that a man who was capable of taking so much trouble for so
+small a matter would not disappoint his wife when she had set her heart
+upon such a trifle as a ticket for the Jubilee. Within three days he had
+the promise of what he wanted. A certain lonely lady of high position
+lay very ill just then, and it need scarcely be explained that her
+confidential servant fell upon the invitation as soon as it arrived and
+sold it for a round sum to the first applicant, who happened to be Count
+Del Ferice's valet. So the matter was arranged, privately and without
+scandal.
+
+All Rome was alive with expectation. The date fixed was the first of
+January, and as the day approached the curious foreigner mustered in his
+thousands and tens of thousands and took the city by storm. The hotels
+were thronged. The billiard tables were let as furnished rooms, people
+slept in the lifts, on the landings, in the porters' lodges. The thrifty
+Romans retreated to roofs and cellars and let their small dwellings.
+People reaching the city on the last night slept in the cabs they had
+hired to take them to St. Peter's before dawn. Even the supplies of food
+ran low and the hungry fed on what they could get, while the delicate of
+taste very often did not feed at all. There was of course the usual
+scare about a revolutionary demonstration, to which the natives paid
+very little attention, but which delighted the foreigners.
+
+Not more than half of those who hoped to witness the ceremony saw
+anything of it, though the basilica will hold some eighty thousand
+people at a pinch, and the crowd on that occasion was far greater than
+at the opening of the Oecumenical Council in 1869.
+
+Madame d'Aragona had also determined to be present, and she expressed
+her desire to Gouache. She had spoken the strict truth when she had said
+that she knew no one in Rome, and so far as general accuracy is
+concerned it was equally true that she had not fixed the length of her
+stay. She had not come with any settled purpose beyond a vague idea of
+having her portrait painted by the French artist, and unless she took
+the trouble to make acquaintances, there was nothing attractive enough
+about the capital to keep her. She allowed herself to be driven about
+the town, on pretence of seeing churches and galleries, but in reality
+she saw very little of either. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts
+and subject to fits of abstraction. Most things seemed to her intensely
+dull, and the unhappy guide who had been selected to accompany her on
+her excursions, wasted his learning upon her on the first morning, and
+subsequently exhausted the magnificent catalogue of impossibilities
+which he had concocted for the especial benefit of the uncultivated
+foreigner, without eliciting so much as a look of interest or an
+expression of surprise. He was a young and fascinating guide, wearing a
+white satin tie, and on the third day he recited some verses of
+Stecchetti and was about to risk a declaration of worship in ornate
+prose, when he was suddenly rather badly scared by the lady's yellow
+eyes, and ran on nervously with a string of deceased popes and their
+dates.
+
+"Get me a card for the Jubilee," she said abruptly.
+
+"An entrance is very easily procured," answered the guide. "In fact I
+have one in my pocket, as it happens. I bought it for twenty francs this
+morning, thinking that one of my foreigners would perhaps take it of me.
+I do not even gain a franc--my word of honour."
+
+Madame d'Aragona glanced at the slip of paper.
+
+"Not that," she answered. "Do you imagine that I will stand? I want a
+seat in one of the tribunes."
+
+The guide lost himself in apologies, but explained that he could not
+get what she desired.
+
+"What are you for?" she inquired.
+
+She was an indolent woman, but when by any chance she wanted anything,
+Donna Tullia herself was not more restless. She drove at once to
+Gouache's studio. He was alone and she told him what she needed.
+
+"The Jubilee, Madame? Is it possible that you have been forgotten?"
+
+"Since they have never heard of me! I have not the slightest claim to a
+place."
+
+"It is you who say that. But your place is already secured. Fear
+nothing. You will be with the Roman ladies."
+
+"I do not understand--"
+
+"It is simple. I was thinking of it yesterday. Young Saracinesca comes
+in and begins to talk about you. There is Madame d'Aragona who has no
+seat, he says. One must arrange that. So it is arranged."
+
+"By Don Orsino?"
+
+"You would not accept? No. A young man, and you have only met once. But
+tell me what you think of him. Do you like him?"
+
+"One does not like people so easily as that," said Madame d'Aragona,
+"How have you arranged about the seat?"
+
+"It is very simple. There are to be two days, you know. My wife has her
+cards for both, of course. She will only go once. If you will accept the
+one for the first day, she will be very happy."
+
+"You are angelic, my dear friend! Then I go as your wife?" She laughed.
+
+"Precisely. You will be Faustina Gouache instead of Madame d'Aragona."
+
+"How delightful! By the bye, do not call me Madame d'Aragona. It is not
+my name. I might as well call you Monsieur de Paris, because you are a
+Parisian."
+
+"I do not put Anastase Gouache de Paris on my cards," answered Gouache
+with a laugh. "What may I call you? Donna Maria?"
+
+"My name is Maria Consuelo d'Aranjuez."
+
+"An ancient Spanish name," said Gouache.
+
+"My husband was an Italian."
+
+"Ah! Of Spanish descent, originally of Aragona. Of course."
+
+"Exactly. Since I am here, shall I sit for you? You might almost finish
+to-day."
+
+"Not so soon as that. It is Don Orsino's hour, but as he has not come,
+and since you are so kind--by all means."
+
+"Ah! Is he punctual?"
+
+"He is probably running after those abominable dogs in pursuit of the
+feeble fox--what they call the noble sport."
+
+Gouache's face expressed considerable disgust."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Maria Consuelo. "He has nothing else to do."
+
+"He will get used to it. They all do. Besides, it is really the natural
+condition of man. Total idleness is his element. If Providence meant man
+to work, it should have given him two heads, one for his profession and
+one for himself. A man needs one entire and undivided intelligence for
+the study of his own individuality."
+
+"What an idea!"
+
+"Do not men of great genius notoriously forget themselves, forget to eat
+and drink and dress themselves like Christians? That is because they
+have not two heads. Providence expects a man to do two things at
+once--an air from an opera and invent the steam-engine at the same
+moment. Nature rebels. Then Providence and Nature do not agree. What
+becomes of religion? It is all a mystery. Believe me, Madame, art is
+easier than, nature, and painting is simpler than theology."
+
+Maria Consuelo listened to Gouache's extraordinary remarks with a smile.
+
+"You are either paradoxical, or irreligious, or both," she said.
+
+"Irreligious? I, who carried a rifle at Mentana? No, Madame, I am a good
+Catholic."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+"I believe in God, and I love my wife. I leave it to the Church to
+define my other articles of belief. I have only one head, as you see."
+
+Gouache smiled, but there was a note of sincerity in the odd statement
+which did not escape his hearer.
+
+"You are not of the type which belongs to the end of the century," she
+said.
+
+"That type was not invented when I was forming myself."
+
+"Perhaps you belong rather to the coming age--the age of
+simplification."
+
+"As distinguished from the age of mystification--religious, political,
+scientific and artistic," suggested Gouache. "The people of that day
+will guess the Sphynx's riddle."
+
+"Mine? You were comparing me to a sphynx the other day."
+
+"Yours, perhaps, Madame. Who knows? Are you the typical woman of the
+ending century?"
+
+"Why not?" asked Maria Consuelo with a sleepy look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+There is something grand in any great assembly of animals belonging to
+the same race. The very idea of an immense number of living creatures
+conveys an impression not suggested by anything else. A compact herd of
+fifty or sixty thousand lions would be an appalling vision, beside which
+a like multitude of human beings would sink into insignificance. A drove
+of wild cattle is, I think, a finer sight than a regiment of cavalry in
+motion, for the cavalry is composite, half man and half horse, whereas
+the cattle have the advantage of unity. But we can never see so many
+animals of any species driven together into one limited space as to be
+equal to a vast throng of men and women, and we conclude naturally
+enough that a crowd consisting solely of our own kind is the most
+imposing one conceivable.
+
+It was scarcely light on the morning of New Year's Day when the Princess
+Sant' Ilario found herself seated in one of the low tribunes on the
+north side of the high altar in Saint Peter's. Her husband and her
+eldest son had accompanied her, and having placed her in a position from
+which they judged she could easily escape at the end of the ceremony,
+they remained standing in the narrow, winding passage between improvised
+barriers which led from the tribune to the door of the sacristy, and
+which had been so arranged as to prevent confusion. Here they waited,
+greeting their acquaintances when they could recognise them in the dim
+twilight of the church, and watching the ever-increasing crowd that
+surged slowly backward and forward outside the barrier. The old prince
+was entitled by an hereditary office to a place in the great procession
+of the day, and was not now with them.
+
+Orsino felt as though the whole world were assembled about him within
+the huge cathedral, as though its heart were beating audibly and its
+muffled breathing rising and falling in his hearing. The unceasing sound
+that went up from the compact mass of living beings was soft in quality,
+but enormous in volume and sustained in tone, a great whispering which,
+might have been heard a mile away. One hears in mammoth musical
+festivals the extraordinary effect of four or five thousand voices
+singing very softly; it is not to be compared to the unceasing whisper
+of fifty thousand men.
+
+The young fellow was conscious of a strange, irregular thrill of
+enthusiasm which ran through him from time to time and startled his
+imagination into life. It was only the instinct of a strong vitality
+unconsciously longing to be the central point of the vitalities around
+it. But he could not understand that. It seemed to him like a great
+opportunity brought "within reach but slipping by untaken, not to return
+again. He felt a strange, almost uncontrollable longing to spring upon
+one of the tribunes, to raise his voice, to speak to the great
+multitude, to fire all those men to break out and carry everything
+before them. He laughed audibly at himself. Sant' Ilario looked at his
+son with some curiosity.
+
+"What amuses you?" he asked.
+
+"A dream," answered Orsino, still smiling. "Who knows?" he exclaimed
+after a pause. "What would happen, if at the right moment the right man
+could stir such a crowd as this?"
+
+"Strange things," replied Sant' Ilario gravely. "A crowd is a terrible
+weapon."
+
+"Then my dream was not so foolish after all. One might make history
+to-day."
+
+Sant' Ilario made a gesture expressive of indifference.
+
+"What is history?" he asked. "A comedy in which the actors have no
+written parts, but improvise their speeches and actions as best they
+can. That is the reason why history is so dull and so full of mistakes."
+
+"And of surprises," suggested Orsino.
+
+"The surprises in history are always disagreeable, my boy," answered
+Sant' Ilario.
+
+Orsino felt the coldness in the answer and felt even more his father's
+readiness to damp any expression of enthusiasm. Of late he had
+encountered this chilling indifference at almost every turn, whenever he
+gave vent to his admiration for any sort of activity.
+
+It was not that Giovanni Saracinesca had any intention of repressing his
+son's energetic instincts, and he assuredly had no idea of the effect
+his words often produced. He sometimes wondered at the sudden silence
+which came over the young man after such conversations, but he did not
+understand it and on the whole paid little attention to it. He
+remembered that he himself had been different, and had been wont to
+argue hotly and not unfrequently to quarrel with his father about
+trifles. He himself had been headstrong, passionate, often intractable
+in his early youth, and his father had been no better at sixty and was
+little improved in that respect even at his present great age. But
+Orsino did not argue. He suggested, and if any one disagreed with him he
+became silent. He seemed to possess energy in action, and a number of
+rather fantastic aspirations, but in conversation he was easily silenced
+and in outward manner he would have seemed too yielding if he had not
+often seemed too cold.
+
+Giovanni did not see that Orsino was most like his mother in character,
+while the contact with a new generation had given him something
+unfamiliar to the old, an affectation at first, but one which habit was
+amalgamating with the real nature beneath.
+
+No doubt, it was wise and right to discourage ideas which would tend in
+any way to revolution. Giovanni had seen revolutions and had been the
+loser by them. It was not wise and was certainly not necessary to throw
+cold water on the young fellow's harmless aspirations. But Giovanni had
+lived for many years in his own way, rich, respected and supremely
+happy, and he believed that his way was good enough for Orsino. He had,
+in his youth, tried most things for himself, and had found them failures
+so far as happiness was concerned. Orsino might make the series of
+experiments in his turn if he pleased, but there was no adequate reason
+for such an expenditure of energy. The sooner the boy loved some girl
+who would make him a good wife, and the sooner he married her, the
+sooner he would find that calm, satisfactory existence which had not
+finally come to Giovanni until after thirty years of age.
+
+As for the question of fortune, it was true that there were four sons,
+but there was Giovanni's mother's fortune, there was Corona's fortune,
+and there was the great Saracinesca estate behind both. They were all so
+extremely rich that the deluge must be very distant.
+
+Orsino understood none of these things. He only realised that his father
+had the faculty and apparently the intention of freezing any originality
+he chanced to show, and he inwardly resented the coldness, quietly, if
+foolishly, resolving to astonish those who misunderstood him by seizing
+the first opportunity of doing something out of the common way. For some
+time he stood in silence watching the people who came by and glancing
+from time to time at the dense crowd outside the barrier. He was
+suddenly aware that his father was observing intently a lady who
+advanced along the open, way.
+
+"There is Tullia Del Ferice!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario in surprise.
+
+"I do not know her, except by sight," observed Orsino indifferently.
+
+The countess was very imposing in her black veil and draperies. Her red
+face seemed to lose its colour in the dim church and she affected a slow
+and stately manner more becoming to her weight than was her natural
+restless vivacity. She had got what she desired and she swept proudly
+along to take her old place among the ladies of Rome. No one knew whose
+card she had delivered up at the entrance to the sacristy, and she
+enjoyed the triumph of showing that the wife of the revolutionary, the
+banker, the member of parliament, had not lost caste after all.
+
+She looked Giovanni full in the face with her disagreeable blue eyes as
+she came up, apparently not meaning to recognise him. Then, just as she
+passed him, she deigned to make a very slight inclination of the head,
+just enough to compel Sant' Ilario to return the salutation. It was very
+well done. Orsino did not know all the details of the past events, but
+he knew that his father had once wounded Del Ferice in a duel and he
+looked at Del Fence's wife with some curiosity. He had seldom had an
+opportunity of being so near to her.
+
+"It was certainly not about her that they fought," he reflected. "It
+must have been about some other woman, if there was a woman in the
+question at all."
+
+A moment later he was aware that a pair of tawny eyes was fixed on him.
+Maria Consuelo was following Donna Tullia at a distance of a dozen
+yards. Orsino came forward and his new acquaintance held out her hand.
+They had not met since they had first seen each other.
+
+"It was so kind of you," she said.
+
+"What, Madame?"
+
+"To suggest this to Gouache. I should have had no ticket--where shall I
+sit?"
+
+Orsino did not understand, for though he had mentioned the subject,
+Gouache had not told him what he meant to do. But there was no time to
+be lost in conversation. Orsino led her to the nearest opening in the
+tribune and pointed to a seat.
+
+"I called," he said quickly. "You did not receive--"
+
+"Come again, I will be at home," she answered in a low voice, as she
+passed him.
+
+She sat down in a vacant place beside Donna Tullia, and Orsino noticed
+that his mother was just behind them both. Corona had been watching him
+unconsciously, as she often did, and was somewhat surprised to see him
+conducting a lady whom she did not know. A glance told her that the lady
+was a foreigner; as such, if she were present at all, she should have
+been in the diplomatic tribune. There was nothing to think of, and
+Corona tried to solve the small social problem that presented itself.
+Orsino strolled back to his father's side.
+
+"Who is she?" inquired Sant' Ilario with some curiosity.
+
+"The lady who wanted the tiger's skin--Aranjuez--I told you of her."
+
+"The portrait you gave me was not flattering. She is handsome, if not
+beautiful."
+
+"Did I say she was not?" asked Orsino with a visible irritation most
+unlike him.
+
+"I thought so. You said she had yellow eyes, red hair and a squint."
+Sant' Ilario laughed.
+
+"Perhaps I did. But the effect seems to be harmonious."
+
+"Decidedly so. You might have introduced me."
+
+To this Orsino said nothing, but relapsed into a moody silence. He would
+have liked nothing better than to bring about the acquaintance, but he
+had only met Maria Consuelo once, though that interview had been a long
+one, and he remembered her rather short answer to his offer of service
+in the way of making acquaintances.
+
+Maria Consuelo on her part was quite unconscious that she was sitting in
+front of the Princess Sant' Ilario, but she had seen the lady by her
+side bow to Orsino's companion in passing, and she guessed from a
+certain resemblance that the dark, middle-aged man might be young
+Saracinesca's father. Donna Tullia had seen Corona well enough, but as
+they had not spoken for nearly twenty years she decided not to risk a
+nod where she could not command an acknowledgment of it. So she
+pretended to be quite unconscious of her old enemy's presence.
+
+Donna Tullia, however, had noticed as she turned her head in sitting
+down that Orsino was piloting a strange lady to the tribune, and when
+the latter sat down beside her, she determined to make her acquaintance,
+no matter upon what pretext. The time was approaching at which the
+procession was to make its appearance, and Donna. Tullia looked about
+for something upon which to open the conversation, glancing from time to
+time at her neighbour. It was easy to see that the place and the
+surroundings were equally unfamiliar to the newcomer, who looked with
+evident interest at the twisted columns of the high altar, at the vast
+mosaics in the dome, at the red damask hangings of the nave, at the
+Swiss guards, the chamberlains in court dress and at all the
+mediaeval-looking, motley figures that moved about within the space kept
+open for the coming function.
+
+"It is a wonderful sight," said Donna Tullia in Trench, very softly,
+and almost as though speaking to herself.
+
+"Wonderful indeed," answered Maria Consuelo, "especially to a stranger."
+
+"Madame is a stranger, then," observed Donna Tullia with an agreeable
+smile.
+
+She looked into her neighbour's face and for the first time realised
+that she was a striking person.
+
+"Quite," replied the latter, briefly, and as though not wishing to press
+the conversation.
+
+"I fancied so," said Donna Tullia, "though on seeing you in these seats,
+among us Romans--"
+
+"I received a card through the kindness of a friend."
+
+There was a short pause, during which Donna Tullia concluded that the
+friend must have been Orsino. But the next remark threw her off the
+scent.
+
+"It was his wife's ticket, I believe," said Maria Consuelo. "She could
+not come. I am here on false pretences." She smiled carelessly.
+
+Donna Tullia lost herself in speculation, but failed to solve the
+problem.
+
+"You have chosen a most favourable moment for your first visit to Rome,"
+she remarked at last.
+
+"Yes. I am always fortunate. I believe I have seen everything worth
+seeing ever since I was a little girl."
+
+"She is somebody," thought Donna Tullia. "Probably the wife of a
+diplomatist, though. Those people see everything, and talk of nothing
+but what they have seen."
+
+"This is historic," she said aloud. "You will have a chance of
+contemplating the Romans in their glory. Colonna and Orsini marching
+side by side, and old Saracinesca in all his magnificence. He is
+eighty-two year old."
+
+"Saracinesca?" repeated Maria Consuelo, turning her tawny eyes upon her
+neighbour.
+
+"Yes. The father of Sant' Ilario--grandfather of that young fellow who
+showed you to your seat."
+
+"Don Orsino? Yes, I know him slightly."
+
+Corona, sitting immediately behind them heard her son's name. As the two
+ladies turned towards each other in conversation she heard distinctly
+what they said. Donna Tullia was of course aware of this.
+
+"Do you?" she asked. "His father is a most estimable man--just a little
+too estimable, if you understand! As for the boy--"
+
+Donna Tullia moved, her broad shoulders expressively. It was a habit of
+which even the irreproachable Del Ferice could not cure her. Corona's
+face darkened.
+
+"You can hardly call him a boy," observed Maria Consuelo with a smile.
+
+"Ah well--I might have been his mother," Donna Tullia answered with a
+contempt for the affectation of youth which she rarely showed. But
+Corona began to understand that the conversation was meant for her ears,
+and grew angry by degrees. Donna Tullia had indeed been near to marrying
+Giovanni, and in that sense, too, she might have been Orsino's mother.
+
+"I fancied you spoke rather disparagingly," said Maria Consuelo with a
+certain degree of interest.
+
+"I? No indeed. On the contrary, Don Orsino is a very fine fellow--but
+thrown away, positively thrown away in his present surroundings. Of what
+use is all this English education--but you are a stranger, Madame, you
+cannot understand our Roman point of view."
+
+"If you could explain it to me, I might, perhaps," suggested the other.
+
+"Ah yes--if I could explain it! But I am far too ignorant myself--no,
+ignorant is not the word--too prejudiced, perhaps, to make you see it
+quite as it is. Perhaps I am a little too liberal, and the Saracinesca
+are certainly far too conservative. They mistake education for progress.
+Poor Don Orsino, I am sorry for him."
+
+Donna Tullia found no other escape from the difficulty into which she
+had thrown herself.
+
+"I did not know that he was to be pitied," said Maria Consuelo.
+
+"Oh, not he in particular, perhaps," answered the stout countess,
+growing more and more vague. "They are all to be pitied, you know. What
+is to become of young men brought up in that way? The club, the turf,
+the card-table--to drink, to gamble, to bet, it is not an existence!"
+
+"Do you mean that Don Orsino leads that sort of life?" inquired Maria
+Consuelo indifferently.
+
+Again Donna Tullia's heavy shoulders moved contemptuously.
+
+"What else is there for him to do?"
+
+"And his father? Did he not do likewise in his youth?"
+
+"His father? Ah, he was different--before he married--full of life,
+activity, originality!"
+
+"And since his marriage?"
+
+"He has become estimable, most estimable." The smile with which Donna
+Tullia accompanied the statement was intended to be fine, but was only
+spiteful. Maria Consuelo, who saw everything with her sleepy glance,
+noticed the fact.
+
+Corona was disgusted, and leaned back in her seat, as far as possible,
+in order not to hear more. She could not help wondering who the strange
+lady might be to whom Donna Tullia was so freely expressing her opinions
+concerning the Saracinesca, and she determined to ask Orsino after the
+ceremony. But she wished to hear as little more as she could.
+
+"When a married man becomes what you call estimable," said Donna
+Tullia's companion, "he either adores his wife or hates her."
+
+"What a charming idea!" laughed the countess. It Was tolerably evident
+that the remark was beyond her.
+
+"She is stupid," thought Maria Consuelo. "I fancied so from the first. I
+will ask Don Orsino about her. He will say something amusing. It will be
+a subject of conversation at all events, in place of that endless tiger
+I invented the other day. I wonder whether this woman expects me to
+tell her who I am? That will amount to an acquaintance. She is certainly
+somebody, or she would not be here. On the other hand, she seems to
+dislike the only man I know besides Gouache. That may lead to
+complications. Let us talk of Gouache first, and be guided by
+circumstances."
+
+"Do you know Monsieur Gouache?" she inquired, abruptly.
+
+"The painter? Yes--I have known him a long time. Is he perhaps painting
+your portrait?"
+
+"Exactly. It is really for that purpose that I am in Rome. What a
+charming man!"
+
+"Do you think so? Perhaps he is. He painted me some time ago. I was not
+very well satisfied. But he has talent."
+
+Donna Tullia had never forgiven the artist for not putting enough soul
+into the picture he had painted of her when she was a very young widow.
+
+"He has a great reputation," said Maria Consuelo, "and I think he will
+succeed very well with me. Besides, I am grateful to him. He and his
+painting have been a pleasant episode in my short stay here."
+
+"Really, I should hardly have thought you could find it worth your while
+to come all the way to Rome to be painted by Gouache," observed Donna
+Tullia. "But of course, as I say, he has talent."
+
+"This woman is rich," she said to herself. "The wives of diplomatists do
+not allow themselves such caprices, as a rule. I wonder who she is?"
+
+"Great talent," assented Maria Consuelo. "And great charm, I think."
+
+"Ah well--of course--I daresay. We Romans cannot help thinking that for
+an artist he is a little too much occupied in being a gentleman--and for
+a gentleman he is quite too much an artist."
+
+The remark was not original with Donna Tullia, but had been reported to
+her as Spicca's, and Spicca had really said something similar about
+somebody else.
+
+"I had not got that impression," said Maria Consuelo, quietly.
+
+"She hates him, too," she thought. "She seems to hate everybody. That
+either means that she knows everybody, or is not received in society."
+
+"But of course you know him better than I do," she added aloud, after a
+little pause.
+
+At that moment a strain of music broke out above the great, soft,
+muffled whispering that filled the basilica. Some thirty chosen voices
+of the choir of Saint Peter's had begun the hymn "Tu es Petrus," as the
+procession began to defile from the south aisle into the nave, close by
+the great door, to traverse the whole distance thence to the high altar.
+The Pope's own choir, consisting solely of the singers of the Sixtine
+Chapel, waited silently behind the lattice under the statue of Saint
+Veronica.
+
+The song rang out louder and louder, simple and grand. Those who have
+heard Italian singers at their best know that thirty young Roman throats
+can emit a volume of sound equal to that which a hundred men of any
+other nation could produce. The stillness around them increased, too, as
+the procession lengthened. The great, dark crowd stood shoulder to
+shoulder, breathless with expectation, each man and woman feeling for a
+few short moments that thrill of mysterious anxiety and impatience which
+Orsino had felt. No one who was there can ever forget what followed.
+More than forty cardinals filed out in front from the Chapel of the
+Pieta. Then the hereditary assistants of the Holy See, the heads of the
+Colonna and the Orsini houses, entered the nave, side by side for the
+first time, I believe, in history. Immediately after them, high above
+all the procession and the crowd, appeared the great chair of state, the
+huge white feathered fans moving slowly on each side, and upon the
+throne, the central figure of that vast display, sat the Pope, Leo the
+Thirteenth.
+
+Then, without warning and without hesitation, a shout went up such as
+has never been heard before in that dim cathedral, nor will, perhaps, be
+heard again.
+
+"_Viva il Papa-Re!_ Long life to the Pope-King!"
+
+At the same instant, as though at a preconcerted signal--utterly
+impossible in such a throng--in the twinkling of an eye, the dark crowd
+was as white as snow. In every hand a white handkerchief was raised,
+fluttering and waving above every head.
+
+And the shout once taken up, drowned the strong voices of the singers as
+long-drawn thunder drowns the pattering of the raindrops and the sighing
+of the wind.
+
+The wonderful face, that seemed to be carved out of transparent
+alabaster, smiled and slowly turned from side to side as it passed by.
+The thin, fragile hand moved unceasingly, blessing the people.
+
+Orsino Saracinesca saw and heard, and his young face turned pale while
+his lips set themselves. By his side, a head shorter than he, stood his
+father, lost in thought as he gazed at the mighty spectacle of what had
+been, and of what might still have been, but for one day of history's
+surprises.
+
+Orsino said nothing, but he glanced at Sant' Ilario's face as though to
+remind his father of what he had said half an hour earlier; and the
+elder man knew that there had been truth in the boy's words. There were
+soldiers in the church, and they were not Italian soldiers--some
+thousands of them in all, perhaps. They were armed, and there were at
+the very least computation thirty thousand strong, grown men in the
+crowd. And the crowd was on fire. Had there been a hundred, nay a score,
+of desperate, devoted leaders there, who knows what bloody work might
+not have been done in the city before the sun went down? Who knows what
+new surprises history might have found for her play? The thought must
+have crossed many minds at that moment. But no one stirred; the
+religious ceremony remained a religious ceremony and nothing more; holy
+peace reigned within the walls, and the hour of peril glided away
+undisturbed to take its place among memories of good.
+
+"The world is worn out!" thought Orsino. "The days of great deeds are
+over. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die--they are right in
+teaching me their philosophy."
+
+A gloomy, sullen melancholy took hold of the boy's young nature, a
+passing mood, perhaps, but one which left its mark upon him. For he was
+at that age when a very little thing will turn the balance of a
+character, when an older man's thoughtless words may direct half a
+lifetime in a good or evil channel, being recalled and repeated for a
+score of years. Who is it that does not remember that day when an
+impatient "I will," or a defiant "I will not," turned the whole current
+of his existence in the one direction or the other, towards good or
+evil, or towards success or failure? Who, that has fought his way
+against odds into the front rank, has forgotten the woman's look that
+gave him courage, or the man's sneer that braced nerve and muscle to
+strike the first of many hard blows?
+
+The depression which fell upon Orsino was lasting, for that morning at
+least. The stupendous pageant went on before him, the choirs sang, the
+sweet boys' voices answered back, like an angel's song, out of the lofty
+dome, the incense rose in columns through the streaming sunlight as the
+high mass proceeded. Again the Pope was raised upon the chair and borne
+out into the nave, whence in the solemn silence the thin, clear, aged
+voice intoned the benediction three times, slowly rising and falling,
+pausing and beginning again. Once more the enormous shout broke out,
+louder and deeper than ever, as the procession moved away. Then all was
+over.
+
+Orsino saw and heard, but the first impression was gone, and the thrill
+did not come back.
+
+"It was a fine sight," he said to his father, as the shout died away.
+
+"A fine sight? Have you no stronger expression than that?"
+
+"No," answered Orsino, "I have not."
+
+The ladies were already coming out of the tribunes, and Orsino saw his
+father give his arm to Corona to lead her through the crowd. Naturally
+enough, Maria Consuelo and Donna Tullia came out together very soon
+after her. Orsino offered to pilot the former through the confusion, and
+she accepted gratefully. Donna Tullia walked beside them.
+
+"You do not know me, Don Orsino," said she with a gracious smile.
+
+"I beg your pardon--you are the Countess Del Ferice--I have not been
+back from England long, and have not had an opportunity of being
+presented."
+
+Whatever might be Orsino's weaknesses, shyness was certainly not one of
+them, and as he made the civil answer he calmly looked at Donna Tullia
+as though to inquire what in the world she wished to accomplish in
+making his acquaintance. He had been so situated during the ceremony as
+not to see that the two ladies had fallen into conversation.
+
+"Will you introduce me?" said Maria Consuelo. "We have been talking
+together."
+
+She spoke in a low voice, but the words could hardly have escaped Donna
+Tullia. Orsino was very much surprised and not by any means pleased, for
+he saw that the elder woman had forced the introduction by a rather
+vulgar trick. Nevertheless, he could not escape.
+
+"Since you have been good enough to recognise me," he said rather
+stiffly to Donna Tullia, "permit me to make you acquainted with Madame
+d'Aranjuez d'Aragona."
+
+Both ladies nodded and smiled the smile of the newly introduced. Donna
+Tullia at once began to wonder how it was that a person with such a name
+should have but a plain "Madame" to put before it. But her curiosity was
+not satisfied on this occasion.
+
+"How absurd society is!" she exclaimed. "Madame d'Aranjuez and I have
+been talking all the morning, quite like old friends--and now we need an
+introduction!"
+
+Maria Consuelo glanced at Orsino as though, expecting him to make some
+remark. But he said nothing.
+
+"What should we do without conventions!" she said, for the sake of
+saying something.
+
+By this time they were threading the endless passages of the sacristy
+building, on their way to the Piazza Santa, Marta. Sant' Ilario and
+Corona were not far in front of them. At a turn in the corridor Corona
+looked back.
+
+"There is Orsino talking to Tullia Del Ferice!" she exclaimed in great
+surprise. "And he has given his arm to that other lady who was next to
+her in the tribune."
+
+"What does it matter?" asked Sant' Ilario indifferently. "By the bye,
+the other lady is that Madame d'Aranjuez he talks about."
+
+"Is she any relation of your mother's family, Giovanni?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of. She may have married some younger son of whom I
+never heard."
+
+"You do not seem to care whom Orsino knows," said Corona rather
+reproachfully.
+
+"Orsino is grown up, dear. You must not forget that."
+
+"Yes--I suppose he is," Corona answered with a little sigh. "But surely
+you will not encourage him to cultivate the Del Ferice!"
+
+"I fancy it would take a deal of encouragement to drive him to that,"
+said Sant' Ilario with a laugh. "He has better taste."
+
+There was some confusion outside. People were waiting for their
+carriages, and as most of them knew each other intimately every one was
+talking at once. Donna Tullia nodded here and there, but Maria Consuelo
+noticed that her salutations were coldly returned. Orsino and his two
+companions stood a little aloof from the crowd. Just then the
+Saracinesca carriage drove up.
+
+"Who is that magnificent woman?" asked Maria Consuelo, as Corona got in.
+
+"My mother," said Orsino. "My father is getting in now."
+
+"There comes my carriage! Please help me."
+
+A modest hired brougham made its appearance. Orsino hoped that Madame
+d'Aranjuez would offer him a seat. But he was mistaken.
+
+"I am afraid mine is miles away," said Donna Tullia. "Good-bye, I shall
+be so glad if you will come and see me." She held out her hand.
+
+"May I not take you home?" asked Maria Consuelo. "There is just room--it
+will be better than waiting here."
+
+Donna Tullia hesitated a moment, and then accepted, to Orsino's great
+annoyance. He helped the two ladies to get in, and shut the door.
+
+"Come soon," said Maria Consuelo, giving him her hand out of the window.
+
+He was inclined to be angry, but the look that accompanied the
+invitation did its work satisfactorily.
+
+"He is very young," thought Maria Consuelo, as she drove away.
+
+"She can be very amusing. It is worth while," said Orsino to himself as
+he passed in front of the next carriage, and walked out upon the small
+square.
+
+He had not gone far, hindered as he was at every step, when some one
+touched his arm. It was Spicca, looking more cadaverous and exhausted
+than usual.
+
+"Are you going home in a cab?" he asked. "Then let us go together."
+
+They got out of the square, scarcely knowing how they had accomplished
+the feat. Spicca seemed nervous as well as tired, and he leaned on
+Orsino's arm.
+
+"There was a chance lost this morning," said the latter when they were
+under the colonnade. He felt sure of a bitter answer from the keen old
+man.
+
+"Why did you not seize it then?" asked Spicca. "Do you expect old men
+like me to stand up and yell for a republic, or a restoration, or a
+monarchy, or whichever of the other seven plagues of Egypt you desire? I
+have not voice enough left to call a cab, much less to howl down a
+kingdom."
+
+"I wonder what would have happened, if I, or some one else, had tried."
+
+"You would have spent the night in prison with a few kindred spirits.
+After all, that would have been better than making love to old Donna
+Tullia and her young friend."
+
+Orsino laughed.
+
+"You have good eyes," he said.
+
+"So have you, Orsino. Use them. You will see something odd if you look
+where you were looking this morning. Do you know what sort of a place
+this world is?"
+
+"It is a dull place. I have found that out already."
+
+"You are mistaken. It is hell. Do you mind calling that cab?"
+
+Orsino stared a moment at his companion, and then hailed the passing
+conveyance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Orsino had shown less anxiety to see Madame d'Aranjuez than might
+perhaps have been expected. In the ten days which had elapsed between
+the sitting at Gouache's studio and the first of January he had only
+once made an attempt to find her at home, and that attempt had failed.
+He had not even seen her passing in the street, and he had not been
+conscious of any uncontrollable desire to catch a glimpse of her at any
+price.
+
+But he had not forgotten her existence as he would certainly have
+forgotten that of a wholly indifferent person in the same time. On the
+contrary, he had thought of her frequently and had indulged in many
+speculations concerning her, wondering among other matters why he did
+not take more trouble to see her since she occupied his thoughts so
+much. He did not know that he was in reality hesitating, for he would
+not have acknowledged to himself that he could be in danger of falling
+seriously in love. He was too young to admit such a possibility, and the
+character which he admired and meant to assume was altogether too cold
+and superior to such weaknesses. To do him justice, he was really not of
+the sort to fall in love at first sight. Persons capable of a
+self-imposed dualism rarely are, for the second nature they build up on
+the foundation of their own is never wholly artificial. The disposition
+to certain modes of thought and habits of bearing is really present, as
+is sufficiently proved by their admiration of both. Very shy persons,
+for instance, invariably admire very self-possessed ones, and in trying
+to imitate them occasionally exhibit a cold-blooded arrogance which is
+amazing. Timothy Titmouse secretly looks up to Don Juan as his ideal,
+and after half a lifetime of failure outdoes his model, to the horror of
+his friends. Dionysus masks as Hercules, and the fox is sometimes not
+unsuccessful in his saint's disguise. Those who have been intimate with
+a great actor know that the characters he plays best are not all
+assumed; there is a little of each in his own nature. There is a touch
+of the real Othello in Salvini--there is perhaps a strain of the
+melancholy Scandinavian in English Irving.
+
+To be short, Orsino Saracinesca was too enthusiastic to be wholly cold,
+and too thoughtful to be thoroughly enthusiastic. He saw things
+differently according to his moods, and being dissatisfied, he tried to
+make one mood prevail constantly over the other. In a mean nature the
+double view often makes an untruthful individual; in one possessing
+honourable instincts it frequently leads to unhappiness. Affectation
+then becomes aspiration and the man's failure to impose on others is
+forgotten in his misery at failing to impose upon himself.
+
+The few words Orsino had exchanged with Maria Consuelo on the morning of
+the great ceremony recalled vividly the pleasant hour he had spent with
+her ten days earlier, and he determined to see her as soon as possible.
+He was out of conceit with himself and consequently with all those who
+knew him, and he looked forward with pleasure to the conversation of an
+attractive woman who could have no preconceived opinion of him, and who
+could take him at his own estimate. He was curious, too, to find out
+something more definite in regard to her. She was mysterious, and the
+mystery pleased him. She had admitted that her deceased husband had
+spoken of being connected with the Saracinesca, but he could not
+discover where the relationship lay. Spicca's very odd remark, too,
+seemed to point to her, in some way which Orsino could not understand,
+and he remembered her having said that she had heard of Spicca. Her
+husband had doubtless been an Italian of Spanish descent, but she had
+given no clue to her own nationality, and she did not look Spanish, in
+spite of her name, Maria Consuelo. As no one in Rome knew her it was
+impossible to get any information whatever. It was all very interesting.
+
+Accordingly, late on the afternoon of the second of January, Orsino
+called and was led to the door of a small sitting-room on the second
+floor of the hotel. The servant shut the door behind him and Orsino
+found himself alone. A lamp with a pretty shade was burning on the table
+and beside it an ugly blue glass vase contained a few flowers, common
+roses, but fresh and fragrant. Two or three new books in yellow paper
+covers lay scattered upon the hideous velvet table cloth, and beside one
+of them Orsino noticed a magnificent paper cutter of chiselled silver,
+bearing a large monogram done in brilliants and rubies. The thing
+contrasted oddly with its surroundings and attracted the light. An easy
+chair was drawn up to the table, an abominable object covered with
+perfectly new yellow satin. A small red morocco cushion, of the kind
+used in travelling, was balanced on the back, and there was a depression
+in it, as though some one's head had lately rested there.
+
+Orsino noticed all these details as he stood waiting for Madame
+d'Aranjuez to appear, and they were not without interest to him, for
+each one told a story, and the stories were contradictory. The room was
+not encumbered with those numberless objects which most women scatter
+about them within an hour after reaching a hotel. Yet Madame d'Aranjuez
+must have been at least a month in Rome. The room smelt neither of
+perfume nor of cigarettes, but of the roses, which was better, and a
+little of the lamp, which was much worse. The lady's only possessions
+seemed to be three books, a travelling cushion and a somewhat too
+gorgeous paper cutter; and these few objects were perfectly new. He
+glanced at the books; they were of the latest, and only one had been
+cut. The cushion might have been bought that morning. Not a breath had
+tarnished the polished blade of the silver knife.
+
+A door opened softly and Orsino drew himself up as some one pushed in
+the heavy, vivid curtains. But it was not Madame d'Aranjuez. A small
+dark woman of middle age, with downcast eyes and exceedingly black hair,
+came forward a step.
+
+"The signora will come presently," she said in Italian, in a very low
+voice, as though she were almost afraid of hearing herself speak.
+
+She was gone in a moment, as noiselessly as she had come. This was
+evidently the silent maid of whom Gouache had spoken. The few words she
+had spoken had revealed to Orsino the fact that she was an Italian from
+the north, for she had the unmistakable accent of the Piedmontese, whose
+own language is comprehensible only by themselves.
+
+Orsino prepared to wait some time, supposing that the message could
+hardly have been sent without an object. But another minute had not
+elapsed before Maria Consuelo herself appeared. In the soft lamplight
+her clear white skin looked very pale and her auburn hair almost red.
+She wore one of those nondescript garments which we have elected to
+call tea-gowns, and Orsino, who had learned to criticise dress as he had
+learned Latin grammar, saw that the tea-gown was good and the lace real.
+The colours produced no impression upon him whatever. As a matter of
+fact they were dark, being combined in various shades of olive.
+
+Maria Consuelo looked at her visitor and held out her hand, but said
+nothing. She did not even smile, and Orsino began to fancy that he had
+chosen an unfortunate moment for his visit.
+
+"It was very good of you to let me come," he said, waiting for her to
+sit down.
+
+Still she said nothing. She placed the red morocco cushion carefully in
+the particular position which would be most comfortable, turned the
+shade of the lamp a little, which, of course, produced no change
+whatever in the direction of the light, pushed one of the books half
+across the table and at last sat down in the easy chair. Orsino sat down
+near her, holding his hat upon his knee. He wondered whether she had
+heard him speak, or whether she might not be one of those people who are
+painfully shy when there is no third person present.
+
+"I think it was very good of you to come," she said at last, when she
+was comfortably settled.
+
+"I wish goodness were always so easy," answered Orsino with alacrity.
+
+"Is it your ambition to be good?" asked Maria Consuelo with a smile.
+
+"It should be. But it is not a career."
+
+"Then you do not believe in Saints?"
+
+"Not until they are canonised and made articles of belief--unless you
+are one, Madame."
+
+"I have thought of trying it," answered Maria Consuelo, calmly.
+"Saintship is a career, even in society, whatever you may say to the
+contrary. It has attractions, after all."
+
+"Not equal to those of the other side. Every one admits that. The
+majority is evidently in favour of sin, and if we are to believe in
+modern institutions, we must believe that majorities are right."
+
+"Then the hero is always wrong, for he is the enthusiastic individual
+who is always for facing odds, and if no one disagrees with him he is
+very unhappy. Yet there are heroes--"
+
+"Where?" asked Orsino. "The heroes people talk of ride bronze horses on
+inaccessible pedestals. When the bell rings for a revolution they are
+all knocked down and new ones are set up in their places--also executed
+by the best artists--and the old ones are cast into cannon to knock to
+pieces the ideas they invented. That is called history."
+
+"You take a cheerful and encouraging view of the world's history, Don
+Orsino."
+
+"The world is made for us, and we must accept it. But we may criticise
+it. There is nothing to the contrary in the contract."
+
+"In the social contract? Are you going to talk to me about
+Jean-Jacques?"
+
+"Have you read him, Madame?"
+
+"'No woman who respects herself--'" began Maria Consuelo, quoting the
+famous preface.
+
+"I see that you have," said Orsino, with a laugh. "I have not."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+To Orsino's surprise, Madame d'Aranjuez blushed. He could not have told
+why he was pleased, nor why her change of colour seemed so unexpected.
+
+"Speaking of history," he said, after a very slight pause, "why did you
+thank me yesterday for having got you a card?"
+
+"Did you not speak to Gouache about it?"
+
+"I said something--I forget what. Did he manage it?"
+
+"Of course. I had his wife's place. She could not go. Do you dislike
+being thanked for your good offices? Are you so modest as that?"
+
+"Not in the least, but I hate misunderstandings, though I will get all
+the credit I can for what I have not done, like other people. When I saw
+that you knew the Del Ferice, I thought that perhaps she had been
+exerting herself."
+
+"Why do you hate her so?" asked Maria Consuelo.
+
+"I do not hate her. She does not exist--that is all."
+
+"Why does she not exist, as you call it? She is a very good-natured
+woman. Tell me the truth. Everybody hates her--I saw that by the way
+they bowed to her while we were waiting--why? There must be a reason. Is
+she a--an incorrect person?"
+
+Orsino laughed.
+
+"No. That is the point at which existence is more likely to begin than
+to end."
+
+"How cynical you are! I do not like that. Tell me about Madame Del
+Ferice."
+
+"Very well. To begin with, she is a relation of mine."
+
+"Seriously?"
+
+"Seriously. Of course that gives me a right to handle the whole
+dictionary of abuse against her."
+
+"Of course. Are you going to do that?"
+
+"No. You would call me cynical. I do not like you to call me by bad
+names, Madame."
+
+"I had an idea that men liked it," observed Maria Consuelo gravely.
+
+"One does not like to hear disagreeable truths."
+
+"Then it is the truth? Go on. You have forgotten what we were talking
+about."
+
+"Not at all Donna Tullia, my second, third or fourth cousin, was married
+once upon a time to a certain Mayer."
+
+"And left him. How interesting!"
+
+"No, Madame. He left her--very suddenly, I believe--for another world.
+Better or worse? Who can say? Considering his past life, worse, I
+suppose; but considering that he was not obliged to take Donna Tullia
+with him, decidedly better."
+
+"You certainly hate her. Then she married Del Ferice."
+
+"Then she married Del Ferice--before I was born. She is fabulously old.
+Mayer left her very rich, and without conditions. Del Ferice was an
+impossible person. My father nearly killed him in a duel once--also
+before I was born. I never knew what it was about. Del Ferice was a spy,
+in the old days when spies got a living in a Rome--"
+
+"Ah! I see it all now!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo. "Del Ferice is white,
+and you are black. Of course you hate each other. You need not tell me
+any more."
+
+"How you take that for granted!"
+
+"Is it not perfectly clear? Do not talk to me of like and dislike when
+your dreadful parties have anything to do with either! Besides, if I had
+any sympathy with either side it would be for the whites. But the whole
+thing is absurd, complicated, mediaeval, feudal--anything you like
+except sensible. Your intolerance is--intolerable."
+
+"True tolerance should tolerate even intolerance," observed Orsino
+smartly.
+
+"That sounds like one of the puzzles of pronunciation like 'in un piatto
+poco cupo poco pepe pisto cape,'" laughed Maria Consuelo. "Tolerably
+tolerable tolerance tolerates tolerable tolerance intolerably--"
+
+"You speak Italian?" asked Orsino, surprised by her glib enunciation of
+the difficult sentence she had quoted. "Why are we talking a foreign
+language?"
+
+"I cannot really speak Italian. I have an Italian maid, who speaks
+French. But she taught me that puzzle."
+
+"It is odd--your maid is a Piedmontese and you have a good accent."
+
+"Have I? I am very glad. But tell me, is it not absurd that you should
+hate these people as you do--you cannot deny it--merely because they are
+whites?"
+
+"Everything in life is absurd if you take the opposite point of view.
+Lunatics find endless amusement in watching sane people."
+
+"And of course, you are the sane people," observed Maria Consuelo.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"What becomes of me? I suppose I do not exist? You would not be rude
+enough to class me with the lunatics."
+
+"Certainly not. You will of course choose to be a black."
+
+"In order to be discontented, as you are?"
+
+"Discontented?"
+
+"Yes. Are you not utterly out of sympathy with your surroundings? Are
+you not hampered at every step by a network of traditions which have no
+meaning to your intelligence, but which are laid on you like a harness
+upon a horse, and in which you are driven your daily little round of
+tiresome amusement--or dissipation? Do you not hate the Corso as an
+omnibus horse hates it? Do you not really hate the very faces of all
+those people who effectually prevent you from using your own
+intelligence, your own strength--your own heart? One sees it in your
+face. You are too young to be tired of life. No, I am not going to call
+you a boy, though I am older than you, Don Orsino. You will find people
+enough in your own surroundings to call you a boy--because you are not
+yet so utterly tamed and wearied as they are, and for no other reason.
+You are a man. I do not know your age, but you do not talk as boys do.
+You are a man--then be a man altogether, be independent--use your hands
+for something better than throwing mud at other people's houses merely
+because they are new!"
+
+Orsino looked at her in astonishment. This was certainly not the sort of
+conversation he had anticipated when he had entered the room.
+
+"You are surprised because I speak like this," she said after a short
+pause. "You are a Saracinesca and I am--a stranger, here to-day and gone
+to-morrow, whom you will probably never see again. It is amusing, is it
+not? Why do you not laugh?"
+
+Maria Consuelo smiled and as usual her strong red lips closed as soon
+as she had finished speaking, a habit which lent the smile something
+unusual, half-mysterious, and self-contained.
+
+"I see nothing to laugh at," answered Orsino. "Did the mythological
+personage whose name I have forgotten laugh when the sphynx proposed the
+riddle to him?"
+
+"That is the third time within the last few days that I have been
+compared to a sphynx by you or Gouache. It lacks originality in the
+end."
+
+"I was not thinking of being original. I was too much interested. Your
+riddle is the problem of my life."
+
+"The resemblance ceases there. I cannot eat you up if you do not guess
+the answer--or if you do not take my advice. I am not prepared to go so
+far as that."
+
+"Was it advice? It sounded more like a question."
+
+"I would not ask one when I am sure of getting no answer. Besides, I do
+not like being laughed at."
+
+"What has that to do with the matter? Why imagine anything so
+impossible?"
+
+"After all--perhaps it is more foolish to say, 'I advise you to do so
+and so,' than to ask, 'Why do you not do so and so?' Advice is always
+disagreeable and the adviser is always more or less ridiculous. Advice
+brings its own punishment."
+
+"Is that not cynical?" asked Orsino.
+
+"No. Why? What is the worst thing you can do to your social enemy?
+Prevail upon him to give you his counsel, act upon it--it will of course
+turn out badly--then say, "I feared this would happen, but as you
+advised me I did not like--" and so on! That is simple and always
+effectual. Try it."
+
+"Not for worlds!"
+
+"I did not mean with me," answered Maria Consuelo with a laugh.
+
+"No. I am afraid there are other reasons which will prevent me from
+making a career for myself," said Orsino thoughtfully.
+
+Maria Consuelo saw by his face that the subject was a serious one with
+him, as she had already guessed that it must be, and one which would
+always interest him. She therefore let it drop, keeping it in reserve in
+case the conversation flagged.
+
+"I am going to see Madame Del Ferice to-morrow," she observed, changing
+the subject.
+
+"Do you think that is necessary?"
+
+"Since I wish it! I have not your reasons for avoiding her."
+
+"I offended you the other day, Madame, did I not? You remember--when I
+offered my services in a social way."
+
+"No--you amused me," answered Maria Consuelo coolly, and watching to see
+how he would take the rebuke.
+
+But, young as Orsino was, he was a match for her in self-possession.
+
+"I am very glad," he answered without a trace of annoyance. "I feared
+you were displeased."
+
+Maria Consuelo smiled again, and her momentary coldness vanished. The
+answer delighted her, and did more to interest her in Orsino than fifty
+clever sayings could have done. She resolved to push the question a
+little further.
+
+"I will be frank," she said.
+
+"It is always best," answered Orsino, beginning to suspect that
+something very tortuous was coming. His disbelief in phrases of the
+kind, though originally artificial, was becoming profound.
+
+"Yes, I will be quite frank," she repeated. "You do not wish me to know
+the Del Ferice and their set, and you do wish me to know the people you
+like."
+
+"Evidently."
+
+"Why should I not do as I please?"
+
+She was clearly trying to entrap him into a foolish answer, and he grew
+more and more wary.
+
+"It would be very strange if you did not," answered Orsino without
+hesitation.
+
+"Why, again?"
+
+"Because you are absolutely free to make your own choice."
+
+"And if my choice does not meet with your approval?" she asked.
+
+"What can I say, Madame? I and my friends will be the losers, not you."
+
+Orsino had kept his temper admirably, and he did not suffer a hasty word
+to escape his lips nor a shadow of irritation to appear in his face. Yet
+she had pressed him in a way which was little short of rude. She was
+silent for a few seconds, during which Orsino watched her face as she
+turned it slightly away from him and from the lamp. In reality he was
+wondering why she was not more communicative about herself, and
+speculating as to whether her silence in that quarter proceeded from the
+consciousness of a perfectly assured position in the world, or from the
+fact that she had something to conceal; and this idea led him to
+congratulate himself upon not having been obliged to act immediately
+upon his first proposal by bringing about an acquaintance between Madame
+d'Aranjuez and his mother. This uncertainty lent a spice of interest to
+the acquaintance. He knew enough of the world already to be sure that
+Maria Consuelo was born and bred in that state of life to which it has
+pleased Providence to call the social elect. But the peculiar people
+sometimes do strange things and afterwards establish themselves in
+foreign cities where their doings are not likely to be known for some
+time. Not that Orsino cared what this particular stranger's past might
+have been. But he knew that his mother would care very much indeed, if
+Orsino wished her to know the mysterious lady, and would sift the matter
+very thoroughly before asking her to the Palazzo Saracinesca. Donna
+Tullia, on the other hand, had committed herself to the acquaintance on
+her own responsibility, evidently taking it for granted that if Orsino
+knew Madame d'Aranjuez, the latter must be socially irreproachable. It
+amused Orsino to imagine the fat countess's rage if she turned out to
+have made a mistake.
+
+"I shall be the loser too," said Maria Consuelo, in a different tone,
+"if I make a bad choice. But I cannot draw back. I took her to her house
+in my carriage. She seemed to take a fancy to me--" she laughed a
+little.
+
+Orsino smiled as though to imply that the circumstance did not surprise
+him.
+
+"And she said she would come to see me. As a stranger I could not do
+less than insist upon making the first visit, and I named the day--or
+rather she did. I am going to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow? Tuesday is her day. You will meet all her friends."
+
+"Do you mean to say that people still have days in Rome?" Maria Consuelo
+did not look pleased.
+
+"Some people do--very few. Most people prefer to be at home one evening
+in the week."
+
+"What sort of people are Madame Del Ferice's friends?"
+
+"Excellent people."
+
+"Why are you so cautious?"
+
+"Because you are about to be one of them, Madame."
+
+"Am I? No, I will not begin another catechism! You are too clever--I
+shall never get a direct answer from you."
+
+"Not in that way," answered Orsino with a frankness that made his
+companion smile.
+
+"How then?"
+
+"I think you would know how," he replied gravely, and he fixed his young
+black eyes on her with an expression that made her half close her own.
+
+"I should think you would make a good actor," she said softly.
+
+"Provided that I might be allowed to be sincere between the acts."
+
+"That sounds well. A little ambiguous perhaps. Your sincerity might or
+might not take the same direction as the part you had been acting."
+
+"That would depend entirely upon yourself, Madame."
+
+This time Maria Consuelo opened her eyes instead of closing them.
+
+"You do not lack--what shall I say? A certain assurance--you do not
+waste time!"
+
+She laughed merrily, and Orsino laughed with her.
+
+"We are between the acts now," he said. "The curtain goes up to-morrow,
+and you join the enemy."
+
+"Come with me, then."
+
+"In your carriage? I shall be enchanted."
+
+"No. You know I do not mean that. Come with me to the enemy's camp. It
+will be very amusing."
+
+Orsino shook his head.
+
+"I would rather die--if possible at your feet, Madame."
+
+"Are you afraid to call upon Madame Del Ferice?"
+
+"More than of death itself."
+
+"How can you say that?"
+
+"The conditions of the life to come are doubtful--there might be a
+chance for me. There is no doubt at all as to what would happen if I
+went to see Madame Del Ferice."
+
+"Is your father so severe with you?" asked Maria Consuelo with a little
+scorn.
+
+"Alas, Madame, I am not sensitive to ridicule," answered Orsino, quite
+unmoved. "I grant that there is something wanting in my character."
+
+Maria Consuelo had hoped to find a weak point, and had failed, though
+indeed there were many in the young man's armour. She was a little
+annoyed, both at her own lack of judgment and because it would have
+amused her to see Orsino in an element so unfamiliar to him as that in
+which Donna Tullia lived.
+
+"And there is nothing which would induce you to go there?" she asked.
+
+"At present--nothing," Orsino answered coldly.
+
+"At present--but in the future of all possible possibilities?"
+
+"I shall undoubtedly go there. It is only the unforeseen which
+invariably happens."
+
+"I think so too."
+
+"Of course. I will illustrate the proverb by bidding you good evening,"
+said Orsino, laughing as he rose. "By this time the conviction must have
+formed itself in your mind that I was never going. The unforeseen
+happens. I go."
+
+Maria Consuelo would have been glad if he had stayed even longer, for he
+amused her and interested her, and she did not look forward with
+pleasure to the lonely evening she was to spend in the hotel.
+
+"I am generally at home at this hour," she said, giving him her hand.
+
+"Then, if you will allow me? Thanks. Good evening, Madame."
+
+Their eyes met for a moment, and then Orsino left the room. As he lit
+his cigarette in the porch of the hotel, he said to himself that he had
+not wasted his hour, and he was pleasantly conscious of tha inward and
+spiritual satisfaction which every very young man feels when he is aware
+of having appeared at his best in the society of a woman alone. Youth
+without vanity is only premature old age after all.
+
+"She is certainly more than pretty," he said to himself, affecting to be
+critical when he was indeed convinced. "Her mouth is fabulous, but it is
+well shaped and the rest is perfect--no, the nose is insignificant, and
+one of those yellow eyes wanders a little. These are not perfections.
+But what does it matter? The whole is charming, whatever the parts may
+be. I wish she would not go to that horrible fat woman's tea to-morrow."
+
+Such were the observations which Orsino thought fit to make to himself,
+but which by no means represented all that he felt, for they took no
+notice whatever of that extreme satisfaction at having talked well with
+Maria Consuelo, which in reality dominated every other sensation just
+then. He was well enough accustomed to consideration, though his only
+taste of society had been enjoyed during the winter vacations of the
+last two years. He was not the greatest match in the Roman matrimonial
+market for nothing, and he was perfectly well aware of his advantages in
+this respect. He possessed that keen, business-like appreciation of his
+value as a marriageable man which seems to characterise the young
+generation of to-day, and he was not mistaken in his estimate. It was
+made sufficiently clear to him at every turn that he had but to ask in
+order to receive. But he had not the slightest intention of marrying at
+one and twenty as several of his old school-fellows were doing, and he
+was sensible enough to foresee that his position as a desirable
+son-in-law would soon cause him more annoyance than amusement.
+
+Madame d'Aranjuez was doubtless aware that she could not marry him if
+she wished to do so. She was several years older than he--he admitted
+the fact rather reluctantly--she was a widow, and she seemed to have no
+particular social position. These were excellent reasons against
+matrimony, but they were also equally excellent reasons for being
+pleased with himself at having produced a favourable impression on her.
+
+He walked rapidly along the crowded street, glancing carelessly at the
+people who passed and at the brilliantly lighted windows of the shops.
+He passed the door of the club, where he was already becoming known for
+rather reckless play, and he quite forgot that a number of men were
+probably spending an hour at the tables before dinner, a fact which
+would hardly have escaped his memory if he had not been more than
+usually occupied with pleasant thoughts. He did not need the excitement
+of baccarat nor the stimulus of brandy and soda, for his brain was
+already both excited and stimulated, though he was not at once aware of
+it. But it became clear to him when he suddenly found himself standing
+before the steps of the Capitol in the gloomy square of the Ara Coeli,
+wondering what in the world had brought him so far out of his way.
+
+"What a fool I am!" he exclaimed impatiently, as he turned back and
+walked in the direction of his home. "And yet she told me that I would
+make a good actor. They say that an actor should never be carried away
+by his part."
+
+At dinner that evening he was alternately talkative and very silent.
+
+"Where have you been to-day, Orsino?" asked his father, looking at him
+curiously.
+
+"I spent half an hour with Madame d'Aranjuez, and then went for a walk,"
+answered Orsino with sudden indifference.
+
+"What is she like?" asked Corona.
+
+"Clever--at least in Rome." There was an odd, nervous sharpness about
+the answer.
+
+Old Saracinesca raised his keen eyes without lifting his head and looked
+hard at his grandson. He was a little bent in his great old age.
+
+"The boy is in love!" he exclaimed abruptly, and a laugh that was still
+deep and ringing followed the words. Orsino recovered his
+self-possession and smiled carelessly.
+
+Corona was thoughtful during the remainder of the meal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The Princess Sant' Ilario's early life had been deeply stirred by the
+great makers of human character, sorrow and happiness. She had suffered
+profoundly, she had borne her trials with a rare courage, and her
+reward, if one may call it so, had been very great. She had seen the
+world and known it well, and the knowledge had not been forgotten in
+the peaceful prosperity of later years. Gifted with a beauty not
+equalled, perhaps, in those times, endowed with a strong and passionate
+nature under a singularly cold and calm outward manner, she had been
+saved from many dangers by the rarest of commonplace qualities, common
+sense. She had never passed for an intellectual person, she had never
+been very brilliant in conversation, she had even been thought
+old-fashioned in her prejudices concerning the books she read. But her
+judgment had rarely failed her at critical moments. Once only, she
+remembered having committed a great mistake, of which the sudden and
+unexpected consequences had almost wrecked her life. But in that case
+she had suffered her heart to lead her, an innocent girl's good name had
+been at stake, and she had rashly taken a responsibility too heavy for
+love itself to bear. Those days were long past now; twenty years
+separated Corona, the mother of four tall sons, from the Corona who had
+risked all to save poor little Faustina Montevarchi.
+
+But even she knew that a state of such perpetual and unclouded happiness
+could hardly last a lifetime, and she had forced herself, almost
+laughing at the thought, to look forward to the day when Orsino must
+cease to be a boy and must face the world of strong loves and hates
+through which most men have to pass, and which all men must have known
+in order to be men indeed.
+
+The people whose lives are full of the most romantic incidents, are not
+generally, I think, people of romantic disposition. Romance, like power,
+will come uncalled for, and those who seek it most, are often those who
+find it least. And the reason is simple enough. The man of heart is not
+perpetually burrowing in his surroundings for affections upon which his
+heart may feed, any more than the very strong man is naturally impelled
+to lift every weight he sees or to fight with every man he meets. The
+persons whom others call romantic are rarely conscious of being so. They
+are generally far too much occupied with the one great thought which
+make their strongest, bravest and meanest actions seem perfectly
+commonplace to themselves. Corona Del Carmine, who had heroically
+sacrificed herself in her earliest girlhood to save her father from ruin
+and who a few years later had risked a priceless happiness to shield a
+foolish girl, had not in her whole life been conscious of a single
+romantic instinct. Brave, devoted, but unimaginative by nature, she had
+followed her heart's direction in most worldly matters.
+
+She was amazed to find that she was becoming romantic now, in her dreams
+for Orsino's future. All sorts of ideas which she would have laughed at
+in her own youth flitted through her brain from morning till night. Her
+fancy built up a life for her eldest son, which she knew to be far from
+the possibility of realisation, but which had for her a new and strange
+attraction.
+
+She planned for him the most unimaginable happiness, of a kind which
+would perhaps have hardly satisfied his more modern instincts. She saw a
+maiden of indescribable beauty, brought up in unapproachable
+perfections, guarded by the all but insuperable jealousy of an ideal
+home. Orsino was to love this vision, and none other, from the first
+meeting to the term of his natural life, and was to win her in the face
+or difficulties such as would have made even Giovanni, the incomparable,
+look grave. This radiant creature was also to love Orsino, as a matter
+of course, with a love vastly more angelic than human, but not hastily
+nor thoughtlessly, lest Orsino should get her too easily and not value
+her as he ought. Then she saw the two betrothed, side by side on shady
+lawns and moonlit terraces, in a perfectly beautiful intimacy such as
+they would certainly never enjoy in the existing conditions of their own
+society. But that mattered little. The wooing, the winning and the
+marrying of the exquisite girl were to make up Orsino's life, and fifty
+or sixty years of idyllic happiness were to be the reward of their
+mutual devotion. Had she not spent twenty such years herself? Then why
+should not all the rest be possible?
+
+The dreams came and went and she was too sensible not to laugh at them.
+That was not the youth of Giovanni, her husband, nor of men who even
+faintly resembled him in her estimation. Giovanni had wandered far, had
+seen much, and had undoubtedly indulged more than one passing affection,
+before he had been thirty years of age and had loved Corona. Giovanni
+would laugh too, if she told him of her vision of two young and
+beautiful married saints. And his laugh would be more sincere than her
+own. Nevertheless, her dreams haunted her, as they have haunted many a
+loving mother, ever since Althaea plucked from the flame the burning
+brand that measured Meleager's life, and smothered the sparks upon it
+and hid it away among her treasures.
+
+Such things seem foolish, no doubt, in the measure of fact, in the
+glaring light of our day. The thought is none the less noble. The dream
+of an untainted love, the vision of unspotted youth and pure maiden, the
+glory of unbroken faith kept whole by man and wife in holy wedlock, the
+pride of stainless name and stainless race--these things are not less
+high because there is a sublimity in the strength of a great sin which
+may lie the closer to our sympathy, as the sinning is the nearer to our
+weakness.
+
+When old Saracinesca looked up from under his bushy brows and laughed
+and said that his grandson was in love, he thought no more of what he
+said than if he had remarked that Orsino's beard was growing or that
+Giovanni's was turning grey. But Corona's pretty fancies received a
+shock from which they never recovered again, and though she did her best
+to call them back they lost all their reality from that hour. The plain
+fact that at one and twenty years the boy is a man, though a very young
+one, was made suddenly clear to her, and she was faced by another fact
+still more destructive of her ideals, namely, that a man is not to be
+kept from falling in love, when and where he is so inclined, by any
+personal influence whatsoever. She knew that well enough, and the
+supposition that his first young passion might be for Madame d'Aranjuez
+was by no means comforting. Corona immediately felt an interest in that
+lady which she had not felt before and which was not altogether
+friendly.
+
+It seemed to her necessary in the first place to find out something
+definite concerning Maria Consuelo, and this was no easy matter. She
+communicated her wish to her husband when they were alone that evening.
+
+"I know nothing about her," answered Giovanni. "And I do not know any
+one who does. After all it is of very little importance."
+
+"What if he falls seriously in love with this woman?"
+
+"We will send him round the world. At his age that will cure anything.
+When he comes back Madame d'Aranjuez will have retired to the chaos of
+the unknown out of which Orsino has evolved her."
+
+"She does not look the kind of woman to disappear at the right moment,"
+observed Corona doubtfully.
+
+Giovanni was at that moment supremely comfortable, both in mind and
+body. It was late. The old prince had gone to his own quarters, the boys
+were in bed, and Orsino was presumably at a party or at the club. Sant'
+Ilario was enjoying the delight of spending an hour alone in his wife's
+society. They were in Corona's old boudoir, a place full of associations
+for them both. He did not want to be mentally disturbed. He said nothing
+in answer to his wife's remark. She repeated it in a different form.
+
+"Women like her do not disappear when one does not want them," she said.
+
+"What makes you think so?" inquired Giovanni with a man's irritating
+indolence when he does not mean to grasp a disagreeable idea.
+
+"I know it," Corona answered, resting her chin upon her hand and staring
+at the fire.
+
+Giovanni surrendered unconditionally.
+
+"You are probably right, dear. You always are about people."
+
+"Well--then you must see the importance of what I say," said Corona
+pushing her victory.
+
+"Of course, of course," answered Giovanni, squinting at the flames with
+one eye between his outstretched fingers.
+
+"I wish you would wake up!" exclaimed Corona, taking the hand in hers
+and drawing it to her. "Orsino is probably making love to Madame
+d'Aranjuez at this very moment."
+
+"Then I will imitate him, and make love to you, my dear. I could not be
+better occupied, and you know it. You used to say I did it very well."
+
+Corona laughed in her deep, soft voice.
+
+"Orsino is like you. That is what frightens me. He will make love too
+well. Be serious, Giovanni. Think of what I am saying."
+
+"Let us dismiss the question then, for the simple reason that there is
+absolutely nothing to be done. We cannot turn this good woman out of
+Rome, and we cannot lock Orsino up in his room. To tell a boy not to
+bestow his affections in a certain quarter is like ramming a charge into
+a gun and then expecting that it will not come out by the same way. The
+harder you ram it down the more noise it makes--that is all. Encourage
+him and he may possibly tire of it. Hinder him and he will become
+inconveniently heroic."
+
+"I suppose that is true," said Corona. "Then at least find out who the
+woman is," she added, after a pause.
+
+"I will try," Giovanni answered. "I will even go to the length of
+spending an hour a day at the club, if that will do any good--and you
+know how I detest clubs. But if anything whatever is known of her, it
+will be known there."
+
+Giovanni kept his word and expended more energy in attempting to find
+out something about Madame d'Aranjuez during the next few days than he
+had devoted to anything connected with society for a long time. Nearly
+a week elapsed before his efforts met with any success.
+
+He was in the club one afternoon at an early hour, reading the papers,
+and not more than three or four other men were present. Among them were
+Frangipani and Montevarchi, who was formerly known as Ascanio Bellegra.
+There was also a certain young foreigner, a diplomatist, who, like Sant'
+Ilario, was reading a paper, most probably in search of an idea for the
+next visit on his list.
+
+Giovanni suddenly came upon a description of a dinner and reception
+given by Del Ferice and his wife. The paragraph was written in the usual
+florid style with a fine generosity in the distribution of titles to
+unknown persons.
+
+"The centre of all attraction," said the reporter, "was a most beautiful
+Spanish princess, Donna Maria Consuelo d'A----z d'A----a, in whose
+mysterious eyes are reflected the divine fires of a thousand triumphs,
+and who was gracefully attired in olive green brocade--"
+
+"Oh! Is that it?" said Sant' Ilario aloud, and in the peculiar tone
+always used by a man who makes a discovery in a daily paper.
+
+"What is it?" inquired Frangipani and Montevarchi in the same breath.
+The young diplomatist looked up with an air of interrogation.
+
+Sant' Ilario read the paragraph aloud. All three listened as though the
+fate of empires depended on the facts reported.
+
+"Just like the newspapers!" exclaimed Frangipani. "There probably is no
+such person. Is there, Ascanio?"
+
+Montevarchi had always been a weak fellow, and was reported to be at
+present very deep in the building speculations of the day. But there was
+one point upon which he justly prided himself. He was a superior
+authority on genealogy. It was his passion and no one ever disputed his
+knowledge or decision. He stroked his fair beard, looked out of the
+window, winked his pale blue eyes once or twice and then gave his
+verdict.
+
+"There is no such person," he said gravely.
+
+"I beg your pardon, prince," said the young diplomatist, "I have met
+her. She exists."
+
+"My dear friend," answered Montevarchi, "I do not doubt the existence of
+the woman, as such, and I would certainly not think of disagreeing with
+you, even if I had the slightest ground for doing so, which, I hasten to
+say, I have not. Nor, of course, if she is a friend of yours, would I
+like to say more on the subject. But I have taken some little interest
+in genealogy and I have a modest library--about two thousand volumes,
+only--consisting solely of works on the subject, all of which I have
+read and many of which I have carefully annotated. I need not say that
+they are all at your disposal if you should desire to make any
+researches."
+
+Montevarchi had much of his murdered father's manner, without the old
+man's strength. The young secretary of embassy was rather startled at
+the idea of searching through two thousand volumes in pursuit of Madame
+d'Aranjuez's identity. Sant' Ilario laughed.
+
+"I only mean that I have met the lady," said the young man. "Of course
+you are right. I have no idea who she may really be. I have heard odd
+stories about her."
+
+"Oh--have you?" asked Sant' Ilario with renewed interest.
+
+"Yes, very odd." He paused and looked round the room to assure himself
+that no one else was present. "There are two distinct stories about her.
+The first is this. They say that she is a South American prima donna,
+who sang only a few months, at Rio de Janeiro and then at Buenos Ayres.
+An Italian who had gone out there and made a fortune married her from
+the stage. In coming to Europe, he unfortunately fell overboard and she
+inherited all his money. People say that she was the only person who
+witnessed the accident. The man's name was Aragno. She twisted it once
+and made Aranjuez of it, and she turned it again and discovered that it
+spelled Aragona. That is the first story. It sounds well at all events."
+
+"Very," said Sant' Ilario, with a laugh.
+
+"A profoundly interesting page in genealogy, if she happens to marry
+somebody," observed Montevarchi, mentally noting all the facts.
+
+"What is the other story?" asked Frangipani.
+
+"The other story is much less concise and detailed. According to this
+version, she is the daughter of a certain royal personage and of a
+Polish countess. There is always a Polish countess in those stories! She
+was never married. The royal personage has had her educated in a convent
+and has sent her out into the wide world with a pretty fancy name of his
+own invention, plentifully supplied with money and regular documents
+referring to her union with the imaginary Aranjuez, and protected by a
+sort of body-guard of mutes and duennas who never appear in public. She
+is of course to make a great match for herself, and has come to Rome to
+do it. That is also a pretty tale."
+
+"More interesting than the other," said Montevarchi. "These side lights
+of genealogy, these stray rivulets of royal races, if I may so
+poetically call them, possess an absorbing interest for the student. I
+will make a note of it."
+
+"Of course, I do not vouch for the truth of a single word in either
+story," observed the young man. "Of the two the first is the less
+improbable. I have met her and talked to her and she is certainly not
+less than five and twenty years old. She may be more. In any case she is
+too old to have been just let out of a convent."
+
+"Perhaps she has been loose for some years," observed Sant' Ilario,
+speaking of her as though she were a dangerous wild animal.
+
+"We should have heard of her," objected the other. "She has the sort of
+personality which is noticed anywhere and which makes itself felt."
+
+"Then you incline to the belief that she dropped the Signor Aragno
+quietly overboard in the neighbourhood of the equator?"
+
+"The real story may be quite different from either of those I have told
+you."
+
+"And she is a friend of poor old Donna Tullia!" exclaimed Montevarchi
+regretfully. "I am sorry for that. For the sake of her history I could
+almost have gone to the length of making her acquaintance."
+
+"How the Del Ferice would rave if she could hear you call her poor old
+Donna Tullia," observed Frangipani. "I remember how she danced at the
+ball when I came of age!"
+
+"That was a long time ago, Filippo," said Montevarchi thoughtfully, "a
+very long time ago. We were all young once, Filippo--but Donna Tullia is
+really only fit to fill a glass case in a museum of natural history
+now."
+
+The remark was not original, and had been in circulation some time. But
+the three men laughed a little and Montevarchi was much pleased by their
+appreciation. He and Frangipani began to talk together, and Sant' Ilario
+took up his paper again. When the young diplomatist laid his own aside
+and went out, Giovanni followed him, and they left the club together.
+
+"Have you any reason to believe that there is anything irregular about
+this Madame d'Aranjuez?" asked Sant' Ilario.
+
+"No. Stories of that kind are generally inventions. She has not been
+presented at Court--but that means nothing here. And there is a doubt
+about her nationality--but no one has asked her directly about it."
+
+"May I ask who told you the stories?"
+
+The young man's face immediately lost all expression.
+
+"Really--I have quite forgotten," he said. "People have been talking
+about her."
+
+Sant' Ilario justly concluded that his companion's informant was a lady,
+and probably one in whom the diplomatist was interested. Discretion is
+so rare that it can easily be traced to its causes. Giovanni left the
+young man and walked away in the opposite direction, inwardly meditating
+a piece of diplomacy quite foreign to his nature. He said to himself
+that he would watch the man in the world and that it would be easy to
+guess who the lady in question was. It would have been clear to any one
+but himself that he was not likely to learn anything worth knowing, by
+his present mode of procedure.
+
+"Gouache," he said, entering the artist's studio a quarter of an hour
+later, "do you know anything about Madame d'Aranjuez?"
+
+"That is all I know," Gouache answered, pointing to Maria Consuelo's
+portrait which stood finished upon an easel before him, set in an old
+frame. He had been touching it when Giovanni entered. "That is all I
+know, and I do not know that thoroughly. I wish I did. She is a
+wonderful subject."
+
+Sant' Ilario gazed at the picture in silence.
+
+"Are her eyes really like these?" he asked at length.
+
+"Much finer."
+
+"And her mouth?"
+
+"Much larger," answered Gouache with a smile.
+
+"She is bad," said Giovanni with conviction, and he thought of the
+Signor Aragno.
+
+"Women are never bad," observed Gouache with a thoughtful air. "Some are
+less angelic than others. You need only tell them all so to assure
+yourself of the fact."
+
+"I daresay. What is this person? French, Spanish--South American?"
+
+"I have not the least idea. She is not French, at all events."
+
+"Excuse me--does your wife know her?"
+
+Gouache glanced quickly at his visitor's face.
+
+"No."
+
+Gouache was a singularly kind man, and he did his best perhaps for
+reasons of his own, to convey nothing by the monosyllable beyond the
+simple negation of a fact. But the effort was not altogether successful.
+There was an almost imperceptible shade of surprise in the tone which
+did not escape Giovanni. On the other hand it was perfectly clear to
+Gouache that Sant' Ilario's interest in the matter was connected with
+Orsino.
+
+"I cannot find any one who knows anything definite," said Giovanni after
+a pause.
+
+"Have you tried Spicca?" asked the artist, examining his work
+critically.
+
+"No. Why Spicca?"
+
+"He always knows everything," answered Gouache vaguely. "By the way,
+Saracinesca, do you not think there might be a little more light just
+over the left eye?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"You ought to know. What is the use of having been brought up under the
+very noses of original portraits, all painted by the best masters and
+doubtless ordered by your ancestors at a very considerable expense--if
+you do not know?"
+
+Giovanni laughed.
+
+"My dear old friend," he said good-humouredly, "have you known us nearly
+five and twenty years without discovering that it is our peculiar
+privilege to be ignorant without reproach?"
+
+Gouache laughed in his turn.
+
+"You do not often make sharp remarks--but when you do!"
+
+Giovanni left the studio very soon, and went in search of Spicca. It was
+no easy matter to find the peripatetic cynic on a winter's afternoon,
+but Gouache's remark had seemed to mean something, and Sant' Ilario saw
+a faint glimmer of hope in the distance. He knew Spicca's habits very
+well, and was aware that when the sun was low he would certainly turn
+into one of the many houses where he was intimate, and spend an hour
+over a cup of tea. The difficulty lay in ascertaining which particular
+fireside he would select on that afternoon. Giovanni hastily sketched a
+route for himself and asked the porter at each of his friends' houses if
+Spicca had entered. Fortune favoured him at last. Spicca was drinking
+his tea with the Marchesa di San Giacinto.
+
+Giovanni paused a moment before the gateway of the palace in which San
+Giacinto had inhabited a large hired apartment for many years. He did
+not see much of his cousin, now, on account of differences in political
+opinion, and he had no reason whatever for calling on Flavia, especially
+as formal New Year's visits had lately been exchanged. However, as San
+Giacinto was now a leading authority on questions of landed property in
+the city, it struck him that he could pretend a desire to see Flavia's
+husband, and make that an excuse for staying a long time, if necessary,
+in order to wait for him.
+
+He found Flavia and Spicca alone together, with a small tea-table
+between them. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes, which
+clung to the oriental curtains and hung in clouds about the rare palms
+and plants. Everything in the San Giacinto house was large, comfortable
+and unostentatious. There was not a chair to be seen which might not
+have held the giant's frame. San Giacinto was a wonderful judge of what
+was good. If he paid twice as much as Montevarchi for a horse, the horse
+turned out to be capable of four times the work. If he bought a picture
+at a sale, it was discovered to be by some good master and other people
+wondered why they had lost courage in the bidding for a trifle of a
+hundred francs. Nothing ever turned out badly with him, but no success
+had the power to shake his solid prudence. No one knew how rich he was,
+but those who had watched him understood that he would never let the
+world guess at half his fortune. He was a giant in all ways and he had
+shown what he could do when he had dominated Flavia during the first
+year of their marriage. She had at first been proud of him, but about
+the time when she would have wearied of another man, she discovered that
+she feared him in a way she certainly did not fear the devil. Yet lie
+had never spoken a harsh, word to her in his life. But there was
+something positively appalling to her in his enormous strength, rarely
+exhibited and never without good reason, but always quietly present, as
+the outline of a vast mountain reflected in a placid lake. Then she
+discovered to her great surprise that he really loved her, which she had
+not expected, and at the end of three years he became aware that she
+loved him, which was still more astonishing. As usual, his investment
+had turned out well.
+
+At the time of which I am speaking Flavia was a slight, graceful woman
+of forty years or thereabouts, retaining much of the brilliant
+prettiness which served her for beauty, and conspicuous always for her
+extremely bright eyes. She was of the type of women who live to a great
+age.
+
+She had not expected to see Sant' Ilario, and as she gave her hand, she
+looked up at him with an air of inquiry. It would have been like him to
+say that he had come to see her husband and not herself, for he had no
+tact with persons whom he did not especially like. There are such people
+in the world.
+
+"Will you give me a cup of tea, Flavia?" he asked, as he sat down, after
+shaking hands with Spicca.
+
+"Have you at last heard that your cousin's tea is good?" inquired the
+latter, who was surprised by Giovanni's coming.
+
+"I am afraid it is cold," said Flavia, looking into the teapot, as
+though she could discover the temperature by inspection.
+
+"It is no matter," answered Giovanni absently.
+
+He was wondering how he could lead the conversation to the discussion of
+Madame d'Aranjuez.
+
+"You belong to the swallowers," observed Spicca, lighting a fresh
+cigarette. "You swallow something, no matter what, and you are
+satisfied."
+
+"It is the simplest way--one is never disappointed."
+
+"It is a pity one cannot swallow people in the same way," said Flavia
+with a laugh.
+
+"Most people do," answered Spicca viciously.
+
+"Were you at the Jubilee on the first day?" asked Giovanni, addressing
+Flavia.
+
+"Of course I was--and you spoke to me."
+
+"That is true. By the bye, I saw that excellent Donna Tullia there. I
+wonder whose ticket she had."
+
+"She had the Princess Befana's," answered Spicca, who knew everything.
+"The old lady happened to be dying--she always dies at the beginning of
+the season--it used to be for economy, but it has become a habit--and so
+Del Ferice bought her card of her servant for his wife."
+
+"Who was the lady who sat with her?" asked Giovanni, delighted with his
+own skill.
+
+"You ought to know!" exclaimed Flavia. "We all saw Orsino take her out.
+That is the famous, the incomparable Madame d'Aranjuez--the most
+beautiful of Spanish princesses according to to-day's paper. I daresay
+you have seen the account of the Del Ferice party. She is no more
+Spanish than Alexander the Great. Is she, Spicca?"
+
+"No, she is not Spanish," answered the latter.
+
+"Then what in the world is she?" asked Giovanni impatiently.
+
+"How should I know? Of course it is very disagreeable for you." It was
+Flavia who spoke.
+
+"Disagreeable? How?"
+
+"Why, about Orsino of course. Everybody says he is devoted to her."
+
+"I wish everybody would mind his and her business," said Giovanni
+sharply. "Because a boy makes the acquaintance of a stranger at a
+studio--"
+
+"Oh--it was at a studio? I did not know that."
+
+"Yes, at Gouache's--I fancied your sister might have told you that,"
+said Giovanni, growing more and more irritable, and yet not daring to
+change the subject, lest he should lose some valuable information.
+"Because Orsino makes her acquaintance accidentally, every one must say
+that he is in love with her."
+
+Flavia laughed.
+
+"My dear Giovanni," she answered. "Let us be frank. I used never to
+tell the truth under any circumstances, when I was a girl, but
+Giovanni--my Giovanni--did not like that. Do you know what he did? He
+used to cut off a hundred francs of my allowance for every fib I
+told--laughing at me all the time. At the end of the first quarter I
+positively had not a pair of shoes, and all my gloves had been cleaned
+twice. He used to keep all the fines in a special pocket-book--if you
+knew how hard I tried to steal it! But I could not. Then, of course, I
+reformed. There was nothing else to be done--that or rags--fancy! And do
+you know? I have grown quite used to being truthful. Besides, it is so
+original, that I pose with it."
+
+Flavia paused, laughed a little, and puffed at her cigarette.
+
+"You do not often come to see me, Giovanni," she said, "and since you
+are here I am going to tell you the truth about your visit. You are
+beside yourself with rage at Orsino's new fancy, and you want to find
+out all about this Madame d'Aranjuez. So you came here, because we are
+Whites and you saw that she had been at the Del Ferice party, and you
+know that we know them--and the rest is sung by the organ, as we say
+when high mass is over. Is that the truth, or not?"
+
+"Approximately," said Giovanni, smiling in spite of himself.
+
+"Does Corona cut your allowance when you tell fibs?" asked Flavia. "No?
+Then why say that it is only approximately true?"
+
+"I have my reasons. And you can tell me nothing?"
+
+"Nothing. I believe Spicca knows all about her. But he will not tell
+what he knows."
+
+Spicca made no answer to this, and Giovanni determined to outstay him,
+or rather, to stay until he rose to go and then go with him. It was
+tedious work for he was not a man who could talk against time on all
+occasions. But he struggled bravely and Spicca at last got up from his
+deep chair. They went out together, and stopped as though by common
+consent upon the brilliantly lighted landing of the first floor.
+
+"Seriously, Spicca," said Giovanni, "I am afraid Orsino is falling in
+love with this pretty stranger. If you can tell me anything about her,
+please do so."
+
+Spicca stared at the wall, hesitated a moment, and then looked straight
+into his companion's eyes.
+
+"Have you any reason to suppose that I, and I especially, know anything
+about this lady?" he asked.
+
+"No--except that you know everything."
+
+"That is a fable." Spicca turned from him and began to descend the
+stairs.
+
+Giovanni followed and laid a hand upon his arm.
+
+"You will not do me this service?" he asked earnestly.
+
+Again Spicca stopped and looked at him.
+
+"You and I are very old friends, Giovanni," he said slowly. "I am older
+than you, but we have stood by each other very often--in places more
+slippery than these marble steps. Do not let us quarrel now, old friend.
+When I tell you that my omniscience exists only in the vivid
+imaginations of people whose tea I like, believe me, and if you wish to
+do me a kindness--for the sake of old times--do not help to spread the
+idea that I know everything."
+
+The melancholy Spicca had never been given to talking about friendship
+or its mutual obligations. Indeed, Giovanni could not remember having
+ever heard him speak as he had just spoken. It was perfectly clear that
+he knew something very definite about Maria Consuelo, and he probably
+had no intention of deceiving Giovanni in that respect. But Spicca also
+knew his man, and he knew that his appeal for Giovanni's silence would
+not be vain.
+
+"Very well," said Sant' Ilario.
+
+They exchanged a few indifferent words before parting, and then Giovanni
+walked slowly homeward, pondering on the things he had heard that day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+While Giovanni was exerting himself to little purpose in attempting to
+gain information concerning Maria Consuelo, she had launched herself
+upon the society of which the Countess Del Ferice was an important and
+influential member. Chance, and probably chance alone, had guided her in
+the matter of this acquaintance, for it could certainly not be said that
+she had forced herself upon Donna Tullia, nor even shown any uncommon
+readiness to meet the latter's advances. The offer of a seat in her
+carriage had seemed natural enough, under the circumstances, and Donna
+Tullia had been perfectly free to refuse it if she had chosen to do so.
+
+Though possessing but the very slightest grounds for believing herself
+to be a born diplomatist, the Countess had always delighted in petty
+plotting and scheming. She now saw a possibility of annoying all
+Orsino's relations by attracting the object of Orsino's devotion to her
+own house. She had no especial reason for supposing that the young man
+was really very much in love with Madame d'Aranjuez, but her woman's
+instinct, which far surpassed her diplomatic talents in acuteness, told
+her that Orsino was certainly not indifferent to the interesting
+stranger. She argued, primitively enough, that to annoy Orsino must be
+equivalent to annoying his people, and she supposed that she could do
+nothing more disagreeable to the young man's wishes than to induce
+Madame d'Aranjuez to join that part of society from which all the
+Saracinesca were separated by an insuperable barrier.
+
+And Orsino indeed resented the proceeding, as she had expected; but his
+family were at first more inclined to look upon Donna Tullia as a good
+angel who had carried off the tempter at the right moment to an
+unapproachable distance. It was not to be believed that Orsino could do
+anything so monstrous as to enter Del Ferice's house or ask a place in
+Del Ferice's circle, and it was accordingly a relief to find that Madame
+d'Aranjuez had definitely chosen to do so, and had appeared in
+olive-green brocade at the Del Ferice's last party. The olive-green
+brocade would now assuredly not figure in the gatherings of the
+Saracinesca's intimate friends.
+
+Like every one else, Orsino read the daily chronicle of Roman life in
+the papers, and until he saw Maria Consuelo's name among the Del
+Ferice's guests, he refused to believe that she had taken the
+irrevocable step he so much feared. He had still entertained vague
+notions of bringing about a meeting between her and his mother, and he
+saw at a glance that such a meeting was now quite out of the question.
+This was the first severe shock his vanity had ever received and he was
+surprised at the depth of his own annoyance. Maria Consuelo might indeed
+have been seen once with Donna Tullia, and might have gone once to the
+latter's day. That was bad enough, but might be remedied by tact and
+decision in her subsequent conduct. But there was no salvation possible
+after a person had been advertised in the daily paper as Madame
+d'Aranjuez had been. Orsino was very angry. He had been once to see her
+since his first visit, and she had said nothing about this invitation,
+though Donna Tullia's name had been mentioned. He was offended with her
+for not telling him that she was going to the dinner, as though he had
+any right to be made acquainted with her intentions. He had no sooner
+made the discovery than he determined to visit his anger upon her, and
+throwing the paper aside went straight to the hotel where she was
+stopping.
+
+Maria Consuelo was at home and he was ushered into the little
+sitting-room without delay. To his inexpressible disgust he found Del
+Ferice himself installed upon the chair near the table, engaged in
+animated conversation with Madame d'Aranjuez. The situation was awkward
+in the extreme. Orsino hoped that Del Ferice would go at once, and thus
+avoid the necessity of an introduction. But Ugo did nothing of the kind.
+He rose, indeed, but did not take his hat from the table, and stood
+smiling pleasantly while Orsino shook hands with Maria Consuelo.
+
+"Let me make you acquainted," she said with exasperating calmness, and
+she named the two men to each other.
+
+Ugo put out his hand quietly and Orsino was obliged to take it, which he
+did coldly enough. Ugo had more than his share of tact, and he never
+made a disagreeable impression upon any one if he could help it. Maria
+Consuelo seemed to take everything for granted, and Orsino's appearance
+did not disconcert her in the slightest degree. Both men sat down and
+looked at her as though expecting that she would choose a subject of
+conversation for them.
+
+"We were talking of the change in Rome," she said. "Monsieur Del Ferice
+takes a great interest in all that is doing, and he was explaining to me
+some of the difficulties with which he has to contend."
+
+"Don Orsino knows what they are, as well as I, though we might perhaps
+differ as to the way of dealing with them," said Del Ferice.
+
+"Yes," answered Orsino, more coldly than was necessary. "You play the
+active part, and we the passive."
+
+"In a certain sense, yes," returned the other, quite unruffled. "You
+have exactly defined the situation, and ours is by far the more
+disagreeable and thankless part to play. Oh--I am not going to defend
+all we have done! I only defend what we mean to do. Change of any sort
+is execrable to the man of taste, unless it is brought about by
+time--and that is a beautifier which we have not at our disposal. We are
+half Vandals and half Americans, and we are in a terrible hurry."
+
+Maria Consuelo laughed, and Orsino's face became a shade less gloomy. He
+had expected to find Del Ferice the arrogant, self-satisfied apostle of
+the modern, which he was represented to be.
+
+"Could you not have taken a little more time?" asked Orsino.
+
+"I cannot see how. Besides it is our time which takes us with it. So
+long as Rome was the capital of an idea there was no need of haste in
+doing anything. But when it became the capital of a modern kingdom, it
+fell a victim to modern facts--which are not beautiful. The most we can
+hope to do is to direct the current, clumsily enough, I daresay. We
+cannot stop it. Nothing short of Oriental despotism could. We cannot
+prevent people from flocking to the centre, and where there is a
+population it must be housed."
+
+"Evidently," said Madame d'Aranjuez.
+
+"It seems to me that, without disturbing the old city, a new one might
+have been built beside it," observed Orsino.
+
+"No doubt. And that is practically what we have done. I say 'we,'
+because you say 'you.' But I think you will admit that, as far as
+personal activity is concerned, the Romans of Rome are taking as active
+a share in building ugly houses as any of the Italian Romans. The
+destruction of the Villa Ludovisi, for instance, was forced upon the
+owner not by the national government but by an insane municipality, and
+those who have taken over the building lots are largely Roman princes of
+the old stock."
+
+The argument was unanswerable, and Orsino knew it, a fact which did not
+improve his temper. It was disagreeable enough to be forced into a
+conversation with Del Ferice, and it was still worse to be obliged to
+agree with him. Orsino frowned and said nothing, hoping that the subject
+would drop. But Del Ferice had only produced an unpleasant impression in
+order to remove it and thereby improve the whole situation, which was
+one of the most difficult in which he had found himself for some time.
+
+"I repeat," he said, with a pleasant smile, "that it is hopeless to
+defend all of what is actually done in our day in Rome. Some of your
+friends and many of mine are building houses which even age and ruin
+will never beautify. The only defensible part of the affair is the
+political change which has brought about the necessity of building at
+all, and upon that point I think that we may agree to differ. Do you not
+think so, Don Orsino?"
+
+"By all means," answered the young man, conscious that the proposal was
+both just and fitting.
+
+"And for the rest, both your friends and mine--for all I know, your own
+family and certainly I myself--have enormous interests at stake. We may
+at least agree to hope that none of us may be ruined."
+
+"Certainly--though we have had nothing to do with the matter. Neither my
+father nor my grandfather have entered into any such speculation."
+
+"It is a pity," said Del Ferice thoughtfully.
+
+"Why a pity?"
+
+"On the one hand my instincts are basely commercial," Del Ferice
+answered with a frank laugh. "No matter how great a fortune may be, it
+may be doubled and trebled. You must remember that I am a banker in fact
+if not exactly in designation, and the opportunity is excellent. But the
+greater pity is that such men as you, Don Orsino, who could exercise as
+much influence as it might please you to use, leave it to men--very
+unlike you, I fancy--to murder the architecture of Rome and prepare the
+triumph of the hideous."
+
+Orsino did not answer the remark, although he was not altogether
+displeased with the idea it conveyed. Maria Consuelo looked at him.
+
+"Why do you stand aloof and let things go from bad to worse when you
+might really do good by joining in the affairs of the day?" she asked.
+
+"I could not join in them, if I would," answered Orsino.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I have not command of a hundred francs in the world, Madame.
+That is the simplest and best of all reasons."
+
+Del Ferice laughed incredulously.
+
+"The eldest son of Casa Saracinesca would not find that a practical
+obstacle," he said, taking his hat and rising to go. "Besides, what is
+needed in these transactions is not so much ready money as courage,
+decision and judgment. There is a rich firm of contractors now doing a
+large business, who began with three thousand francs as their whole
+capital--what you might lose at cards in an evening without missing it,
+though you say that you have no money at your command."
+
+"Is that possible?" asked Orsino with some interest.
+
+"It is a fact. There were three men, a tobacconist, a carpenter and a
+mason, and they each had a thousand francs of savings. They took over a
+contract last week for a million and a half, on which they will clear
+twenty per cent. But they had the qualities--the daring and the prudence
+combined. They succeeded."
+
+"And if they had failed, what would have happened?"
+
+"They would have lost their three thousand francs. They had nothing else
+to lose, and there was nothing in the least irregular about their
+transactions. Good evening, Madame--I have a private meeting of
+directors at my house. Good evening, Don Orsino."
+
+He went out, leaving behind him an impression which was not by any means
+disagreeable. His appearance was against him, Orsino thought. His fat
+white face and dull eyes were not pleasant to look at. But he had shown
+tact in a difficult situation, and there was a quiet energy about him, a
+settled purpose which could not fail to please a young man who hated his
+own idleness.
+
+Orsino found that his mood had changed. He was less angry than he had
+meant to be, and he saw extenuating circumstances where he had at first
+only seen a wilful mistake. He sat down again.
+
+"Confess that he is not the impossible creature you supposed," said
+Maria Consuelo with a laugh.
+
+"No, he is not. I had imagined something very different. Nevertheless, I
+wish--one never has the least right to wish what one wishes--" He
+stopped in the middle of the sentence.
+
+"That I had not gone to his wife's party, you would say? But my dear Don
+Orsino, why should I refuse pleasant things when they come into my
+life?"
+
+"Was it so pleasant?"
+
+"Of course it was. A beautiful dinner--half a dozen clever men, all
+interested in the affairs of the day, and all anxious to explain them to
+me because I was a stranger. A hundred people or so in the evening, who
+all seemed to enjoy themselves as much as I did. Why should I refuse all
+that? Because my first acquaintance in Rome--who was Gouache--is so
+'indifferent,' and because you--my second--are a pronounced clerical?
+That is not reasonable."
+
+"I do not pretend to be reasonable," said Orsino. "To be reasonable is
+the boast of people who feel nothing."
+
+"Then you are a man of heart?" Maria Consuelo seemed amused.
+
+"I make no pretence to being a man of head, Madame."
+
+"You are not easily caught."
+
+"Nor Del Ferice either."
+
+"Why do you talk of him?"
+
+"The opportunity is good, Madame. As he is just gone, we know that he is
+not coming."
+
+"You can be very sarcastic, when you like," said Maria Consuelo. "But I
+do not believe that you are as bitter as you make yourself out to be. I
+do not even believe that you found Del Ferice so very disagreeable as
+you pretend. You were certainly interested in what he said."
+
+"Interest is not always agreeable. The guillotine, for instance,
+possesses the most lively interest for the condemned man at an
+execution."
+
+"Your illustrations are startling. I once saw an execution, quite by
+accident, and I would rather not think of it. But you can hardly compare
+Del Ferice to the guillotine."
+
+"He is as noiseless, as keen and as sure," said Orsino smartly.
+
+"There is such a thing as being too clever," answered Maria Consuelo,
+without a smile.
+
+"Is Del Ferice a case of that?"
+
+"No. You are. You say cutting things merely because they come into your
+head, though I am sure that you do not always mean them. It is a bad
+habit."
+
+"Because it makes enemies, Madame?" Orsino was annoyed by the rebuke.
+
+"That is the least good of good reasons."
+
+"Another, then?"
+
+"It will prevent people from loving you," said Maria Consuelo gravely.
+
+"I never heard that--"
+
+"No? It is true, nevertheless."
+
+"In that case I will reform at once," said Orsino, trying to meet her
+eyes. But she looked away from him.
+
+"You think that I am preaching to you," she answered. "I have not the
+right to do that, and if I had, I would certainly not use it. But I have
+seen something of the world. Women rarely love a man who is bitter
+against any one but himself. If he says cruel things of other women, the
+one to whom he says them believes that he will say much worse of her to
+the next he meets; if he abuses the men she knows, she likes it even
+less--it is an attack on her judgment, on her taste and perhaps upon a
+half-developed sympathy for the man attacked. One should never be witty
+at another person's expense, except with one's own sex." She laughed a
+little.
+
+"What a terrible conclusion!"
+
+"Is it? It is the true one."
+
+"Then the way to win a woman's love is to praise her acquaintances? That
+is original."
+
+"I never said that."
+
+"No? I misunderstood. What is the best way?"
+
+"Oh--it is very simple," laughed Maria Consuelo.
+
+"Tell her you love her, and tell her so again and again--you will
+certainly please her in the end."
+
+"Madame--" Orsino stopped, and folded his hands with an air of devout
+supplication.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, nothing! I was about to begin. It seemed so simple, as you say."
+
+They both laughed and their eyes met for a moment.
+
+"Del Ferice interests me very much," said Maria Consuelo, abruptly
+returning to the original subject of conversation. "He is one of those
+men who will be held responsible for much that is now doing. Is it not
+true? He has great influence."
+
+"I have always heard so." Orsino was not pleased at being driven to talk
+of Del Ferice again.
+
+"Do you think what he said about you so altogether absurd?"
+
+"Absurd, no--impracticable, perhaps. You mean his suggestion that I
+should try a little speculation? Frankly, I had no idea that such things
+could be begun with so little capital. It seems incredible. I fancy that
+Del Ferice was exaggerating. You know how carelessly bankers talk of a
+few thousands, more or less. Nothing short of a million has much meaning
+for them. Three thousand or thirty thousand--it is much the same in
+their estimation."
+
+"I daresay. After all, why should you risk anything? I suppose it is
+simpler to play cards, though I should think it less amusing. I was only
+thinking how easy it would be for you to find a serious occupation if
+you chose."
+
+Orsino was silent for a moment, and seemed to be thinking over the
+matter.
+
+"Would you advise me to enter upon such a business without my father's
+knowledge?" he asked presently.
+
+"How can I advise you? Besides, your father would let you do as you
+please. There is nothing dishonourable in such things. The prejudice
+against business is old-fashioned, and if you do not break through it
+your children will."
+
+Orsino looked thoughtfully at Maria Consuelo. She sometimes found an
+oddly masculine bluntness with which to express her meaning, and which
+produced a singular impression on the young man. It made him feel what
+he supposed to be a sort of weakness, of which he ought to be ashamed.
+
+"There is nothing dishonourable in the theory," he answered, "and the
+practice depends on the individual."
+
+Maria Consuelo laughed.
+
+"You see--you can be a moralist when you please," she said.
+
+There was a wonderful attraction in her yellow eyes just at that moment.
+
+"To please you, Madame, I could do something much worse--or much
+better."
+
+He was not quite in earnest, but he was not jesting, and his face was
+more serious than his voice. Maria Consuelo's hand was lying on the
+table beside the silver paper-cutter. The white, pointed fingers were
+very tempting and he would willingly have touched them. He put out his
+hand. If she did not draw hers away he would lay his own upon it. If she
+did, he would take up the paper-cutter. As it turned out, he had to
+content himself with the latter. She did not draw her hand away as
+though she understood what he was going to do, but quietly raised it and
+turned the shade of the lamp a few inches.
+
+"I would rather not be responsible for your choice," she said quietly.
+
+"And yet you have left me none," he answered with, sudden boldness.
+
+"No? How so?"
+
+He held up the silver knife and smiled.
+
+"I do not understand," she said, affecting a look of surprise.
+
+"I was going to ask your permission to take your hand."
+
+"Indeed? Why? There it is." She held it out frankly.
+
+He took the beautiful fingers in his and looked at them for a moment.
+Then he quietly raised them to his lips.
+
+"That was not included in the permission," she said, with a little laugh
+and drawing back. "Now you ought to go away at once."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because that little ceremony can belong only to the beginning or the
+end of a visit."
+
+"I have only just come."
+
+"Ah? How long the time has seemed! I fancied you had been here half an
+hour."
+
+"To me it has seemed but a minute," answered Orsino promptly.
+
+"And you will not go?"
+
+There was nothing of the nature of a peremptory dismissal in the look
+which accompanied the words.
+
+"No--at the most, I will practise leave-taking."
+
+"I think not," said Maria Consuelo with sudden coldness. "You are a
+little too--what shall I say?--too enterprising, prince. You had better
+make use of the gift where it will be a recommendation--in business, for
+instance."
+
+"You are very severe, Madame," answered Orsino, deeming it wiser to
+affect humility, though a dozen sharp answers suggested themselves to
+his ready wit.
+
+Maria Consuelo was silent for a few seconds. Her head was resting upon
+the little red morocco cushion, which heightened the dazzling whiteness
+of her skin and lent a deeper colour to her auburn hair. She was gazing
+at the hangings above the door. Orsino watched her in quiet admiration.
+She was beautiful as he saw her there at that moment, for the
+irregularities of her features were forgotten in the brilliancy of her
+colouring and in the grace of the attitude. Her face was serious at
+first. Gradually a smile stole over it, beginning, as it seemed, from
+the deeply set eyes and concentrating itself at last in the full, red
+mouth. Then she spoke, still looking upwards and away from him.
+
+"What would you think if I were not a little severe?" she asked. "I am a
+woman living--travelling, I should say--quite alone, a stranger here,
+and little less than a stranger to you. What would you think if I were
+not a little severe, I say? What conclusion would you come to, if I let
+you take my hand as often as you pleased, and say whatever suggested
+itself to your imagination--your very active imagination?"
+
+"I should think you the most adorable of women--"
+
+"But it is not my ambition to be thought the most adorable of women by
+you, Prince Orsino."
+
+"No--of course not. People never care for what they get without an
+effort."
+
+"You are absolutely irrepressible!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo, laughing
+in spite of herself.
+
+"And you do not like that! I will be meekness itself--a lamb, if you
+please."
+
+"Too playful--it would not suit your style."
+
+"A stone--"
+
+"I detest geology."
+
+"A lap-dog, then. Make your choice, Madame. The menagerie of the
+universe is at your disposal. When Adam gave names to the animals, he
+could have called a lion a lap-dog--to reassure the Africans. But he
+lacked imagination--he called a cat, a cat."
+
+"That had the merit of simplicity, at all events."
+
+"Since you admire his system, you may call me either Cain or Abel,"
+suggested Orsino. "Am I humble enough? Can submission go farther?"
+
+"Either would be flattery--for Abel was good and Cain was interesting."
+
+"And I am neither--you give me another opportunity of exhibiting my deep
+humility. I thank you sincerely. You are becoming more gracious than I
+had hoped."
+
+"You are very like a woman, Don Orsino. You always try to have the last
+word."
+
+"I always hope that the last word may be the best. But I accept the
+criticism--or the reproach, with my usual gratitude. I only beg you to
+observe that to let you have the last word would be for me to end the
+conversation, after which I should be obliged to go away. And I do not
+wish to go, as I have already said."
+
+"You suggest the means of making you go," answered Maria Consuelo, with
+a smile. "I can be silent--if you will not."
+
+"It will be useless. If you do not interrupt me, I shall become
+eloquent--"
+
+"How terrible! Pray do not!"
+
+"You see! I have you in my power. You cannot get rid of me."
+
+"I would appeal to your generosity, then."
+
+"That is another matter, Madame," said Orsino, taking his hat.
+
+"I only said that I would--" Maria Consuelo made a gesture to stop him.
+
+But he was wise enough to see that the conversation had reached its
+natural end, and his instinct told him that he should not outstay his
+welcome. He pretended not to see the motion of her hand, and rose to
+take his leave.
+
+"You do not know me," he said. "To point out to me a possible generous
+action, is to ensure my performing it without hesitation. When may I be
+so fortunate as to see you again, Madame?"
+
+"You need not be so intensely ceremonious. You know that I am always at
+home at this hour."
+
+Orsino was very much struck by this answer. There was a shade of
+irritation in the tone, which he had certainly not expected, and which
+flattered him exceedingly. She turned her face away as she gave him her
+hand and moved a book on the table with the other as though she meant to
+begin reading almost before he should be out of the room. He had not
+felt by any means sure that she really liked his society, and he had not
+expected that she would so far forget herself as to show her inclination
+by her impatience. He had judged, rightly or wrongly, that she was a
+woman who weighed every word and gesture beforehand, and who would be
+incapable of such an oversight as an unpremeditated manifestation of
+feeling.
+
+Very young men are nowadays apt to imagine complications of character
+where they do not exist, often overlooking them altogether where they
+play a real part. The passion for analysis discovers what it takes for
+new simple elements in humanity's motives, and often ends by feeding on
+itself in the effort to decompose what is not composite. The greatest
+analysers are perhaps the young and the old, who, being respectively
+before and behind the times, are not so intimate with them as those who
+are actually making history, political or social, ethical or scandalous,
+dramatic or comic.
+
+It is very much the custom among those who write fiction in the English
+language to efface their own individuality behind the majestic but
+rather meaningless plural, "we," or to let the characters created
+express the author's view of mankind. The great French novelists are
+more frank, for they say boldly "I," and have the courage of their
+opinions. Their merit is the greater, since those opinions seem to be
+rarely complimentary to the human race in general, or to their readers
+in particular. Without introducing any comparison between the fiction of
+the two languages, it may be said that the tendency of the method is
+identical in both cases and is the consequence of an extreme preference
+for analysis, to the detriment of the romantic and very often of the
+dramatic element in the modern novel. The result may or may not be a
+volume of modern social history for the instruction of the present and
+the future generation. If it is not, it loses one of the chief merits
+which it claims; if it is, then we must admit the rather strange
+deduction, that the political history of our times has absorbed into
+itself all the romance and the tragedy at the disposal of destiny,
+leaving next to none at all in the private lives of the actors and
+their numerous relations.
+
+Whatever the truth may be, it is certain that this love of minute
+dissection is exercising an enormous influence in our time; and as no
+one will pretend that a majority of the young persons in society who
+analyse the motives of their contemporaries and elders are successful
+moral anatomists, we are forced to the conclusion that they are
+frequently indebted to their imaginations for the results they obtain
+and not seldom for the material upon which they work. A real Chemistry
+may some day grow out of the failures of this fanciful Alchemy, but the
+present generation will hardly live to discover the philosopher's stone,
+though the search for it yield gold, indirectly, by the writing of many
+novels. If fiction is to be counted among the arts at all, it is not yet
+time to forget the saying of a very great man: "It is the mission of all
+art to create and foster agreeable illusions."
+
+Orsino Saracinesca was no further removed from the action of the
+analytical bacillus than other men of his age. He believed and desired
+his own character to be more complicated than it was, and he had no
+sooner made the acquaintance of Maria Consuelo than he began to
+attribute to her minutest actions such a tortuous web of motives as
+would have annihilated all action if it had really existed in her brain.
+The possible simplicity of a strong and much tried character, good or
+bad, altogether escaped him, and even an occasional unrestrained word or
+gesture failed to convince him that he was on the wrong track. To tell
+the truth, he was as yet very inexperienced. His visits to Maria
+Consuelo passed in making light conversation. He tried to amuse her, and
+succeeded fairly well, while at the same time he indulged in endless and
+fruitless speculations as to her former life, her present intentions and
+her sentiments with regard to himself. He would have liked to lead her
+into talking of herself, but he did not know where to begin. It was not
+a part of his system to believe in mysteries concerning people, but
+when he reflected upon the matter he was amazed at the impenetrability
+of the barrier which cut him off from all knowledge of her life. He soon
+heard the tales about her which were carelessly circulated at the club,
+and he listened to them without much interest, though he took the
+trouble to deny their truth on his own responsibility, which surprised
+the men who knew him and gave rise to the story that he was in love with
+Madame d'Aranjuez. The most annoying consequence of the rumour was that
+every woman to whom he spoke in society overwhelmed him with questions
+which he could not answer except in the vaguest terms. In his ignorance
+he did his best to evolve a satisfactory history for Maria Consuelo out
+of his imagination, but the result was not satisfactory.
+
+He continued his visits to her, resolving before each meeting that he
+would risk offending her by putting some question which she must either
+answer directly or refuse to answer altogether. But he had not counted
+upon his own inherent hatred of rudeness, nor upon the growth of an
+attachment which he had not foreseen when he had coldly made up his mind
+that it would be worth while to make love to her, as Gouache had
+laughingly suggested. Yet he was pleased with what he deemed his own
+coldness. He assuredly did not love her, but he knew already that he
+would not like to give up the half hours he spent with her. To offend
+her seriously would be to forfeit a portion of his daily amusement which
+he could not spare.
+
+From time to time he risked a careless, half-jesting declaration such as
+many a woman might have taken seriously. But Maria Consuelo turned such
+advances with a laugh or by an answer that was admirably tempered with
+quiet dignity and friendly rebuke.
+
+"If she is not good," he said to himself at last, "she must be
+enormously clever. She must be one or the other."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Orsino's twenty-first birthday fell in the latter part of January, when
+the Roman season was at its height, but as the young man's majority did
+not bring him any of those sudden changes in position which make epochs
+in the lives of fatherless sons, the event was considered as a family
+matter and no great social celebration of it was contemplated. It
+chanced, too, that the day of the week was the one appropriated by the
+Montevarchi for their weekly dance, with which it would have been a
+mistake to interfere. The old Prince Saracinesca, however, insisted that
+a score of old friends should be asked to dinner, to drink the health of
+his eldest grandson, and this was accordingly done.
+
+Orsino always looked back to that banquet as one of the dullest at which
+he ever assisted. The friends were literally old, and their conversation
+was not brilliant. Each one on arriving addressed to him a few
+congratulatory and moral sentiments, clothed in rounded periods and
+twanging of Cicero in his most sermonising mood. Each drank his especial
+health at the end of the dinner in a teaspoonful of old "vin santo," and
+each made a stiff compliment to Corona on her youthful appearance. The
+men were almost all grandees of Spain of the first class and wore their
+ribbons by common consent, which lent the assembly an imposing
+appearance; but several of them were of a somnolent disposition and
+nodded after dinner, which did not contribute to prolong the effect
+produced. Orsino thought their stories and anecdotes very long-winded
+and pointless, and even the old prince himself seemed oppressed by the
+solemnity of the affair, and rarely laughed. Corona, with serene good
+humour did her best to make conversation, and a shade of animation
+occasionally appeared at her end of the table; but Sant' Ilario was
+bored to the verge of extinction and talked of nothing but archaeology
+and the trial of the Cenci, wondering inwardly why he chose such
+exceedingly dry subjects. As for Orsino, the two old princesses between
+whom he was placed paid very little attention to him, and talked across
+him about the merits of their respective confessors and directors. He
+frivolously asked them whether they ever went to the theatre, to which
+they replied very coldly that they went to their boxes when the piece
+was not on the Index and when there was no ballet. Orsino understood why
+he never saw them at the opera, and relapsed into silence. The butler, a
+son of the legendary Pasquale of earlier days, did his best to cheer the
+youngest of his masters with a great variety of wines; but Orsino would
+not be comforted either by very dry champagne or very mellow claret. But
+he vowed a bitter revenge and swore to dance till three in the morning
+at the Montevarchi's and finish the night with a rousing baccarat at the
+club, which projects he began to put into execution as soon as was
+practicable.
+
+In due time the guests departed, solemnly renewing their expressions of
+good wishes, and the Saracinesca household was left to itself. The old
+prince stood before the fire in the state drawing-room, rubbing his
+hands and shaking his head. Giovanni and Corona sat on opposite sides of
+the fireplace, looking at each other and somewhat inclined to laugh.
+Orsino was intently studying a piece of historical tapestry which had
+never interested him before.
+
+The silence lasted some time. Then old Saracinesca raised his head and
+gave vent to his feelings, with all his old energy.
+
+"What a museum!" he exclaimed. "I would not have believed that I should
+live to dine in my own house with a party of stranded figure-heads, set
+up in rows around my table! The paint is all worn off and the brains are
+all worn out and there is nothing left but a cracked old block of wood
+with a ribbon around its neck. You will be just like them, Giovanni, in
+a few years, for you will be just like me--we all turn into the same
+shape at seventy, and if we live a dozen years longer it is because
+Providence designs to make us an awful example to the young."
+
+"I hope you do not call yourself a figure-head," said Giovanni.
+
+"They are calling me by worse names at this very minute as they drive
+home. 'That old Methuselah of a Saracinesca, how has he the face to go
+on living?' That is the way they talk. 'People ought to die decently
+when other people have had enough of them, instead of sitting up at the
+table like death's-heads to grin at their grandchildren and
+great-grandchildren!' They talk like that, Giovanni. I have known some
+of those old monuments for sixty years and more--since they were babies
+and I was of Orsino's age. Do you suppose I do not know how they talk?
+You always take me for a good, confiding old fellow, Giovanni. But then,
+you never understood human nature."
+
+Giovanni laughed and Corona smiled. Orsino turned round to enjoy the
+rare delight of seeing the old gentleman rouse himself in a fit of
+temper.
+
+"If you were ever confiding it was because you were too good," said
+Giovanni affectionately.
+
+"Yes--good and confiding--that is it! You always did agree with me as to
+my own faults. Is it not true, Corona? Can you not take my part against
+that graceless husband of yours? He is always abusing me--as though I
+were his property, or his guest. Orsino, my boy, go away--we are all
+quarrelling here like a pack of wolves, and you ought to respect your
+elders. Here is your father calling me by bad names--"
+
+"I said you were too good," observed Giovanni.
+
+"Yes--good and confiding! If you can find anything worse to say, say
+it--and may you live to hear that good-for-nothing Orsino call you good
+and confiding when you are eighty-two years old. And Corona is laughing
+at me. It is insufferable. You used to be a good girl, Corona--but you
+are so proud of having four sons that there is no possibility of talking
+to you any longer. It is a pity that you have not brought them up
+better. Look at Orsino. He is laughing too."
+
+"Certainly not at you, grandfather," the young man hastened to say.
+
+"Then you must be laughing at your father or your mother, or both, since
+there is no one else here to laugh at. You are concocting sharp speeches
+for your abominable tongue. I know it. I can see it in your eyes. That
+is the way you have brought up your children, Giovanni. I congratulate
+you. Upon my word, I congratulate you with all my heart! Not that I ever
+expected anything better. You addled your own brains with curious
+foreign ideas on your travels--the greater fool I for letting you run
+about the world when you were young. I ought to have locked you up in
+Saracinesca, on bread and water, until you understood the world well
+enough to profit by it. I wish I had."
+
+None of the three could help laughing at this extraordinary speech.
+Orsino recovered his gravity first, by the help of the historical
+tapestry. The old gentleman noticed the fact.
+
+"Come here, Orsino, my boy," he said. "I want to talk to you."
+
+Orsino came forward. The old prince laid a hand on his shoulder and
+looked up into his face.
+
+"You are twenty-one years old to-day," he said, "and we are all
+quarrelling in honour of the event. You ought to be flattered that we
+should take so much trouble to make the evening pass pleasantly for you,
+but you probably have not the discrimination to see what your amusement
+costs us."
+
+His grey beard shook a little, his rugged features twitched, and then a
+broad good-humoured smile lit up the old face.
+
+"We are quarrelsome people," he continued in his most Cheerful and
+hearty tone. "When Giovanni and I were young--we were young together,
+you know--we quarrelled every day as regularly as we ate and drank. I
+believe it was very good for us. We generally made it up before
+night--for the sake of beginning again with a clear conscience. Anything
+served us--the weather, the soup, the colour of a horse."
+
+"You must have led an extremely lively life," observed Orsino,
+considerably amused.
+
+"It was very well for us, Orsino. But it will not do for you. You are
+not so much like your father, as he was like me at your age. We fought
+with the same weapons, but you two would not, if you fought at all. We
+fenced for our own amusement and we kept the buttons on the foils. You
+have neither my really angelic temper nor your father's stony
+coolness--he is laughing again--no matter, he knows it is true. You have
+a diabolical tongue. Do not quarrel with your father for amusement,
+Orsino. His calmness will exasperate you as it does me, but you will not
+laugh at the right moment as I have done all my life. You will bear
+malice and grow sullen and permanently disagreeable. And do not say all
+the cutting things you think of, because with your disposition you will
+get into serious trouble. If you have really good cause for being angry,
+it is better to strike than to speak, and in such cases I strongly
+advise you to strike first. Now go and amuse yourself, for you must have
+had enough of our company. I do not think of any other advice to give
+you on your coming of age."
+
+Thereupon he laughed again and pushed his grandson away, evidently
+delighted with the lecture he had given him. Orsino was quick to profit
+by the permission and was soon in the Montevarchi ballroom, doing his
+best to forget the lugubrious feast in his own honour at which he had
+lately assisted.
+
+He was not altogether successful, however. He had looked forward to the
+day for many months as one of rejoicing as well as of emancipation, and
+he had been grievously disappointed. There was something of ill augury,
+he thought, in the appalling dulness of the guests, for they had
+congratulated him upon his entry into a life exactly similar to their
+own. Indeed, the more precisely similar it proved to be, the more he
+would be respected when he reached their advanced age. The future
+unfolded to him was not gay. He was to live forty, fifty or even sixty
+years in the same round of traditions and hampered by the same net of
+prejudices. He might have his romance, as his father had had before him,
+but there was nothing beyond that. His father seemed perfectly satisfied
+with his own unruffled existence and far from desirous of any change.
+The feudalism of it all was still real in fact, though abolished in
+theory, and the old prince was as much a great feudal lord as ever,
+whose interests were almost tribal in their narrowness, almost sordid in
+their detail, and altogether uninteresting to his presumptive heir in
+the third generation. What was the peasant of Aquaviva, for instance, to
+Orsino? Yet Sant' Ilario and old Saracinesca took a lively interest in
+his doings and in the doings of four or five hundred of his kind, whom
+they knew by name and spoke of as belongings, much as they would have
+spoken of books in the library. To collect rents from peasants and to
+ascertain in person whether their houses needed repair was not a career.
+Orsino thought enviously of San Giacinto's two sons, leading what seemed
+to him a life of comparative activity and excitement in the Italian
+army, and having the prospect of distinction by their own merits. He
+thought of San Giacinto himself, of his ceaseless energy and of the
+great position he was building up. San Giacinto was a Saracinesca as
+well as Orsino, bearing the same name and perhaps not less respected
+than the rest by the world at large, though he had sullied his hands
+with finance. Even Del Ferice's position would have been above
+criticism, but for certain passages in his earlier life not immediately
+connected with his present occupation. And as if such instances were not
+enough there were, to Orsino's certain knowledge, half a dozen men of
+his father's rank even now deeply engaged in the speculations of the
+day. Montevarchi was one of them, and neither he nor the others made any
+secret of their doings.
+
+"Surely," thought Orsino, "I have as good a head as any of them, except,
+perhaps, San Giacinto."
+
+And he grew more and more discontented with his lot, and more and more
+angry at himself for submitting to be bound hand and foot and sacrificed
+upon the altar of feudalism. Everything had disappointed and irritated
+him on that day, the weariness of the dinner, the sight of his parents'
+placid felicity, the advice his grandfather had given him--good of its
+kind, but lamentably insufficient, to say the least of it. He was
+rapidly approaching that state of mind in which young men do the most
+unexpected things for the mere pleasure of surprising their relations.
+
+He grew tired of the ball, because Madame d'Aranjuez was not there. He
+longed to dance with her and he wished that he were at liberty to
+frequent the houses la which she was asked. But as yet she saw only the
+Whites and had not made the acquaintance of a single Grey family, in
+spite of his entreaties. He could not tell whether she had any fixed
+reason in making her choice, or whether as yet it had been the result of
+chance, but he discovered that he was bored wherever he went because she
+was not present. At supper-time on this particular evening, he entered
+into a conspiracy with certain choice spirits to leave the party and
+adjourn to the club and cards.
+
+The sight of the tables revived him and he drew a long breath as he sat
+down with a cigarette in his mouth and a glass at his elbow. It seemed
+as though the day were beginning at last.
+
+Orsino was no more a born gambler than he was disposed to be a hard
+drinker. He loved excitement in any shape, and being so constituted as
+to bear it better than most men, he took it greedily in whatever form it
+was offered to him. He neither played nor drank every day, but when he
+did either he was inclined to play more than other people and to consume
+more strong liquor. Yet his judgment was not remarkable, nor his head
+much stronger than the heads of his companions. Great gamblers do not
+drink, and great drinkers are not good players, though they are
+sometimes amazingly lucky when in their cups.
+
+It is of no use to deny the enormous influence of brandy and games of
+chance on the men of the present day, but there is little profit in
+describing such scenes as take place nightly in many clubs all over
+Europe. Something might be gained, indeed, if we could trace the causes
+which have made gambling especially the vice of our generation, for that
+discovery might show us some means of influencing the next. But I do not
+believe that this is possible. The times have undoubtedly grown more
+dull, as civilisation has made them more alike, but there is, I think,
+no truth in the common statement that vice is bred of idleness. The
+really idle man is a poor creature, incapable of strong sins. It is far
+more often the man of superior gifts, with faculties overwrought and
+nerves strained above concert pitch by excessive mental exertion, who
+turns to vicious excitement for the sake of rest, as a duller man falls
+asleep. Men whose lives are spent amidst the vicissitudes, surprises and
+disappointments of the money market are assuredly less idle than country
+gentlemen; the busy lawyer has less time to spare than the equally
+gifted fellow of a college; the skilled mechanic works infinitely
+harder, taking the average of the whole year, than the agricultural
+labourer; the life of a sailor on an ordinary merchant ship is one of
+rest, ease and safety compared with that of the collier. Yet there can
+hardly be a doubt as to which individual in each example is the one to
+seek relaxation in excitement, innocent or the reverse, instead of in
+sleep. The operator in the stock market, the barrister, the mechanic,
+the miner, in every case the men whose faculties are the more severely
+strained, are those who seek strong emotions in their daily leisure, and
+who are the more inclined to extend that leisure at the expense of
+bodily rest. It may be objected that the worst vice is found in the
+highest grades of society, that is to say, among men who have no settled
+occupation. I answer that, in the first place, this is not a known fact,
+but a matter of speculation, and that the conclusion is principally
+drawn from the circumstance that the evil deeds of such persons, when
+they become known, are very severely criticised by those whose criticism
+has the most weight, namely by the equals of the sinners in question--as
+well as by writers of fiction whose opinions may or may not be worth
+considering. For one Zola, historian of the Rougon-Macquart family,
+there are a hundred would-be Zolas, censors of a higher class, less
+unpleasantly fond of accurate detail, perhaps, but as merciless in
+intention. But even if the case against society be proved, which is
+possible, I do not think that society can truly be called idle, because
+many of those who compose it have no settled occupation. The social day
+is a long one. Society would not accept the eight hours' system demanded
+by the labour unions. Society not uncommonly works at a high pressure
+for twelve, fourteen and even sixteen hours at a stretch. The mental
+strain, though, not of the most intellectual order, is incomparably more
+severe than that required for success in many lucrative professions or
+crafts. The general absence of a distinct aim sharpens the faculties in
+the keen pursuit of details, and lends an importance to trifles which
+overburdens at every turn the responsibility borne by the nerves. Lazy
+people are not favourites in drawing-rooms, and still less at the
+dinner-table. Consider also that the average man of the world, and many
+women, daily sustain an amount of bodily fatigue equal perhaps to that
+borne by many mechanics and craftsmen and much greater than that
+required in the liberal professions, and that, too, under far less
+favourable conditions. Recapitulate all these points. Add together the
+physical effort, the mental activity, the nervous strain. Take the sum
+and compare it with that got by a similar process from other conditions
+of existence. I think there can be little doubt of the verdict. The
+force exerted is wasted, if you please, but it is enormously great, and
+more than sufficient to prove that those who daily exert it are by no
+means idle. Besides, none of the inevitable outward and visible results
+of idleness are apparent in the ordinary society man or woman. On the
+contrary, most of them exhibit the peculiar and unmistakable signs of
+physical exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anaemia. They are
+overtrained and overworked. In the language of training they are
+"stale."
+
+Men like Orsino Saracinesca are not vicious at his age, though they may
+become so. Vice begins when the excitement ceases to be a matter of
+taste and turns into a necessity. Orsino gambled because it amused him
+when no other amusement was obtainable, and he drank while he played
+because it made the amusement seem more amusing. He was far too young
+and healthy and strong to feel an irresistible longing for anything not
+natural.
+
+On the present occasion he cared very little, at first, whether he won
+or lost, and as often happens to a man in that mood he won a
+considerable sum during the first hour. The sight of the notes before
+him strengthened an idea which had crossed his mind more than once of
+late, and the stimulants he drank suddenly fixed it into a purpose. It
+was true that he did not command any sum of money which could be
+dignified by the name of capital, but he generally had enough in his
+pocket to play with, and to-night he had rather more than usual. It
+struck him that if he could win a few thousands by a run of luck, he
+would have more than enough to try his fortune in the building
+speculations of which Del Ferice had talked. The scheme took shape and
+at once lent a passionate interest to his play.
+
+Orsino had no system and generally left everything to chance, but he
+had no sooner determined that he must win than he improvised a method,
+and began to play carefully. Of course he lost, and as he saw his heap
+of notes diminishing, he filled his glass more and more often. By two
+o'clock he had but five hundred francs left, his face was deadly pale,
+the lights dazzled him and his hands moved uncertainly. He held the bank
+and he knew that if he lost on the card he must borrow money, which he
+did not wish to do.
+
+He dealt himself a five of spades, and glanced at the stakes. They were
+considerable. A last sensation of caution prevented him from taking
+another card. The table turned up a six and he lost.
+
+"Lend me some money, Filippo," he said to the man nearest him, who
+immediately counted out a number of notes.
+
+Orsino paid with the money and the bank passed. He emptied his glass and
+lit a cigarette. At each succeeding deal he staked a small sum and lost
+it, till the bank came to him again. Once more he held a five. The other
+men saw that he was losing and put up all they could. Orsino hesitated.
+Some one observed justly that he probably held a five again. The lights
+swam indistinctly before him and he drew another card. It was a four.
+Orsino laughed nervously as he gathered the notes and paid back what he
+had borrowed.
+
+He did not remember clearly what happened afterwards. The faces of the
+cards grew less distinct and the lights more dazzling. He played blindly
+and won almost without interruption until the other men dropped off one
+by one, having lost as much as they cared to part with at one sitting.
+At four o'clock in the morning Orsino went home in a cab, having about
+fifteen thousand francs in his pockets. The men he had played with were
+mostly young fellows like himself, having a limited allowance of pocket
+money, and Orsino's winnings were very large under the circumstances.
+
+The night air cooled his head and he laughed gaily to himself as he
+drove through the deserted streets. His hand was steady enough now, and
+the gas lamps did not move disagreeably before his eyes. But he had
+reached the stage of excitement in which a fixed idea takes hold of the
+brain, and if it had been possible he would undoubtedly have gone as he
+was, in evening dress, with his winnings in his pocket, to rouse Del
+Ferice, or San Giacinto, or any one else who could put him in the way of
+risking his money on a building lot. He reluctantly resigned himself to
+the necessity of going to bed, and slept as one sleeps at twenty-one
+until nearly eleven o'clock on the following morning.
+
+While he dressed he recalled the circumstances of the previous night and
+was surprised to find that his idea was as fixed as ever. He counted the
+money. There was five times as much as the Del Ferice's carpenter,
+tobacconist and mason had been able to scrape together amongst them. He
+had therefore, according to his simple calculation, just five times as
+good a chance of succeeding as they. And they had been successful. His
+plan fascinated him, and he looked forward to the constant interest and
+occupation with a delight which was creditable to his character. He
+would be busy and the magic word "business" rang in his ears. It was
+speculation, no doubt, but he did not look upon it as a form of
+gambling; if he had done so, he would not have cared for it on two
+consecutive days. It was something much better in his eyes. It was to do
+something, to be some one, to strike out of the everlastingly dull road
+which lay before him and which ended in the vanishing point of an
+insignificant old age.
+
+He had not the very faintest conception of what that business was with
+which he aspired to occupy himself. He was totally ignorant of the
+methods of dealing with money, and he no more knew what a draft at three
+months meant than he could have explained the construction of the watch
+he carried in his pocket. Of the first principles of building he knew,
+if possible, even less and he did not know whether land in the city
+were worth a franc or a thousand francs by the square foot. But he said
+to himself that those things were mere details, and that he could learn
+all he needed of them in a fortnight. Courage and judgment, Del Ferice
+had said, were the chief requisites for success. Courage he possessed,
+and he believed himself cool. He would avail himself of the judgment of
+others until he could judge for himself.
+
+He knew very well what his father would think of the whole plan, but he
+had no intention of concealing his project. Since yesterday, he was of
+age and was therefore his own master to the extent of his own small
+resources. His father had not the power to keep him from entering upon
+any honourable undertaking, though he might justly refuse to be
+responsible for the consequences. At the worst, thought Orsino, those
+consequences might be the loss of the money he had in hand. Since he had
+nothing else to risk, he had nothing else to lose. That is the light in
+which most inexperienced people regard speculation. Orsino therefore
+went to his father and unfolded his scheme, without mentioning Del
+Ferice.
+
+Sant' Ilario listened rather impatiently and laughed when Orsino had
+finished. He did not mean to be unkind, and if he had dreamed of the
+effect his manner would produce, he would have been more careful. But he
+did not understand his son, as he himself had been understood by his own
+father.
+
+"This is all nonsense, my boy," he answered. "It is a mere passing
+fancy. What do you know of business or architecture, or of a dozen other
+matters which you ought to understand thoroughly before attempting
+anything like what you propose?"
+
+Orsino was silent, and looked out of the window, though he was evidently
+listening.
+
+"You say you want an occupation. This is not one. Banking is an
+occupation, and architecture is a career, but what we call affairs in
+Rome are neither one nor the other. If you want to be a banker you must
+go into a bank and do clerk's work for years. If you mean to follow
+architecture as a profession you must spend four or five years in study
+at the very least."
+
+"San Giacinto has not done that," observed Orsino coldly.
+
+"San Giacinto has a very much better head on his shoulders than you, or
+I, or almost any other man in Rome. He has known how to make use of
+other men's talents, and he had a rather more practical education than I
+would have cared to give you. If he were not one of the most honest men
+alive he would certainly have turned out one of the greatest
+scoundrels."
+
+"I do not see what that has to do with it," said Orsino.
+
+"Not much, I confess. But his early life made him understand men as you
+and I cannot understand them, and need not, for that matter."
+
+"Then you object to my trying this?"
+
+"I do nothing of the kind. When I object to the doing of anything I
+prevent it, by fair words or by force. I am not inclined for a pitched
+battle with you, Orsino, and I might not get the better of you after
+all. I will be perfectly neutral. I will have nothing to do with this
+business. If I believed in it, I would give you all the capital you
+could need, but I shall not diminish your allowance in order to hinder
+you from throwing it away. If you want more money for your amusements or
+luxuries, say so. I am not fond of counting small expenses, and I have
+not brought you up to count them either. Do not gamble at cards any more
+than you can help, but if you lose and must borrow, borrow of me. When I
+think you are going too far, I will tell you so. But do not count upon
+me for any help in this scheme of yours. You will not get it. If you
+find yourself in a commercial scrape, find your own way out of it. If
+you want better advice than mine, go to San Giacinto. He will give you a
+practical man's view of the case."
+
+"You are frank, at all events," said Orsino, turning from the window
+and facing his father.
+
+"Most of us are in this house," answered Sant' Ilario. "That will make
+it all the harder for you to deal with the scoundrels who call
+themselves men of business."
+
+"I mean to try this, father," said the young man. "I will go and see San
+Giacinto, as you suggest, and I will ask his opinion. But if he
+discourages me I will try my luck all the same. I cannot lead this life
+any longer. I want an occupation and I will make one for myself."
+
+"It is not an occupation that you want, Orsino. It is another
+excitement. That is all. If you want an occupation, study, learn
+something, find out what work means. Or go to Saracinesca and build
+houses for the peasants--you will do no harm there, at all events. Go
+and drain that land in Lombardy--I can do nothing with it and would sell
+it if I could. But that is not what you want. You want an excitement for
+the hours of the morning. Very well. You will probably find more of it
+than you like. Try it, that is all I have to say."
+
+Like many very just men Giovanni could state a case with alarming
+unfairness when thoroughly convinced that he was right. Orsino stood
+still for a moment and then walked towards the door without another
+word. His father called him back.
+
+"What is it?" asked Orsino coldly.
+
+Sant' Ilario held out his hand with a kindly look in his eyes.
+
+"I do not want you to think that I am angry, my boy. There is to be no
+ill feeling between us about this."
+
+"None whatever," said the young man, though without much alacrity, as he
+shook hands with his father. "I see you are not angry. You do not
+understand me, that is all."
+
+He went out, more disappointed with the result of the interview than he
+had expected, though he had not looked forward to receiving any
+encouragement. He had known very well what his father's views were but
+he had not foreseen that he would be so much irritated by the
+expression of them. His determination hardened and he resolved that
+nothing should hinder him. But he was both willing and ready to consult
+San Giacinto, and went to the latter's house immediately on leaving
+Sant' Ilario's study.
+
+As for Giovanni, he was dimly conscious that he had made a mistake,
+though he did not care to acknowledge it. He was a good horseman and he
+was aware that he would have used a very different method with a restive
+colt. But few men are wise enough to see that there is only one
+universal principle to follow in the exertion of strength, moral or
+physical; and instead of seeking analogies out of actions familiar to
+them as a means of accomplishing the unfamiliar, they try to discover
+new theories of motion at every turn and are led farther and farther
+from the right line by their own desire to reach the end quickly.
+
+"At all events," thought Sant' Ilario, "the boy's new hobby will take
+him to places where he is not likely to meet that woman."
+
+And with this discourteous reflection upon Madame d'Aranjuez he consoled
+himself. He did not think it necessary to tell Corona of Orsino's
+intentions, simply because he did not believe that they would lead to
+anything serious, and there was no use in disturbing her unnecessarily
+with visions of future annoyance. If Orsino chose to speak of it to her,
+he was at liberty to do so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Orsino went directly to San Giacinto's house, and found him in the room
+which he used for working and in which he received the many persons whom
+he was often obliged to see on business. The giant was alone and was
+seated behind a broad polished table, occupied in writing. Orsino was
+struck by the extremely orderly arrangement of everything he saw. Papers
+were tied together in bundles of exactly like shape, which lay in two
+lines of mathematical precision. The big inkstand was just in the middle
+of the rows and a paper-cutter, a pen-rack and an erasing knife lay side
+by side in front of it. The walls were lined with low book-cases of a
+heavy and severe type, filled principally with documents neatly filed in
+volumes and marked on the back in San Giacinto's clear handwriting. The
+only object of beauty in the room was a full-length portrait of Flavia
+by a great artist, which hung above the fireplace. The rigid symmetry of
+everything was made imposing by the size of the objects--the table was
+larger than ordinary tables, the easy-chairs were deeper, broader and
+lower than common, the inkstand was bigger, even the penholder in San
+Giacinto's fingers was longer and thicker than any Orsino had ever seen.
+And yet the latter felt that there was no affectation about all this.
+The man to whom these things belonged and who used them daily was
+himself created on a scale larger than other men.
+
+Though he was older than Sant' Ilario and was, in fact, not far from
+sixty years of age San Giacinto might easily have passed for less than
+fifty. There was hardly a grey thread in his short, thick, black hair,
+and he was still as lean and strong, and almost as active, as he had
+been thirty years earlier. The large features were perhaps a little more
+bony and the eyes somewhat deeper than they had been, but these changes
+lent an air of dignity rather than of age to the face.
+
+He rose to meet Orsino and then made him sit down beside the table. The
+young man suddenly felt an unaccountable sense of inferiority and
+hesitated as to how he should begin.
+
+"I suppose you want to consult me about something," said San Giacinto
+quietly.
+
+"Yes. I want to ask your advice, if you will give it to me--about a
+matter of business."
+
+"Willingly. What is it?"
+
+Orsino was silent for a moment and stared at the wall. He was conscious
+that the very small sum of which he could dispose must seem even smaller
+in the eyes of such a man, but this did not disturb him. He was
+oppressed by San Giacinto's personality and prepared himself to speak as
+though he had been a student undergoing oral examination. He stated his
+case plainly, when he at last spoke. He was of age and he looked forward
+with dread to an idle life. All careers were closed to him. He had
+fifteen thousand francs in his pocket. Could San Giacinto help him to
+occupy himself by investing the sum in a building speculation? Was the
+sum sufficient as a beginning? Those were the questions.
+
+San Giacinto did not laugh as Sant' Ilario had done. He listened very
+attentively to the end and then deliberately offered Orsino a cigar and
+lit one himself, before he delivered his answer.
+
+"You are asking the same question which is put to me very often," he
+said at last. "I wish I could give you any encouragement. I cannot."
+
+Orsino's face fell, for the reply was categorical. He drew back a little
+in his chair, but said nothing.
+
+"That is my answer," continued San Giacinto thoughtfully, "but when one
+says 'no' to another the subject is not necessarily exhausted. On the
+contrary, in such a case as this I cannot let you go without giving you
+my reasons. I do not care to give my views to the public, but such as
+they are, you are welcome to them. The time is past. That is why I
+advise you to have nothing to do with any speculation of this kind. That
+is the best of all reasons."
+
+"But you yourself are still engaged in this business," objected Orsino.
+
+"Not so deeply as you fancy. I have sold almost everything which I do
+not consider a certainty, and am selling what little I still have as
+fast as I can. In speculation there are only two important moments--the
+moment to buy and the moment to sell. In my opinion, this is the time
+to sell, and I do not think that the time for buying will come again
+without a crisis."
+
+"But everything is in such a flourishing state--"
+
+"No doubt it is--to-day. But no one can tell what state business will be
+in next week, nor even to-morrow."
+
+"There is Del Ferice--"
+
+"No doubt, and a score like him," answered San Giacinto, looking quietly
+at Orsino. "Del Ferice is a banker, and I am a speculator, as you wish
+to be. His position is different from ours. It is better to leave him
+out of the question. Let us look at the matter logically. You wish to
+speculate--"
+
+"Excuse me," said Orsino, interrupting him. "I want to try what I can do
+in business."
+
+"You wish to risk money, in one way or another. You therefore wish one
+or more of three things--money for its own sake, excitement or
+occupation. I can hardly suppose that you want money. Eliminate that.
+Excitement is not a legitimate aim, and you can get it more safely in
+other ways. Therefore you want occupation."
+
+"That is precisely what I said at the beginning," observed Orsino with a
+shade of irritation.
+
+"Yes. But I like to reach my conclusions in my own way. You are then a
+young man in search of an occupation. Speculation, and what you propose
+is nothing else, is no more an occupation than playing at the public
+lottery and much less one than playing at baccarat. There at least you
+are responsible for your own mistakes and in decent society you are safe
+from the machinations of dishonest people. That would matter less if the
+chances were in your favour, as they might have been a year ago and as
+they were in mine from the beginning. They are against you now, because
+it is too late, and they are against me. I would as soon buy a piece of
+land on credit at the present moment, as give the whole sum in cash to
+the first man I met in the street."
+
+"Yet there is Montevarchi who still buys--"
+
+"Montevarchi is not worth the paper on which he signs his name," said
+San Giacinto calmly.
+
+Orsino uttered an exclamation of surprise and incredulity.
+
+"You may tell him so, if you please," answered the giant with perfect
+indifference. "If you tell any one what I have said, please to tell him
+first, that is all. He will not believe you. But in six months he will
+know it, I fancy, as well as I know it now. He might have doubled his
+fortune, but he was and is totally ignorant of business. He thought it
+enough to invest all he could lay hands on and that the returns would be
+sure. He has invested forty millions and owns property which he believes
+to be worth sixty, but which will not bring ten in six months, and those
+remaining ten millions he owes on all manner of paper, on mortgages on
+his original property, in a dozen ways which he has forgotten himself."
+
+"I do not see how that is possible!" exclaimed Orsino.
+
+"I am a plain man, Orsino, and I am your cousin. You may take it for
+granted that I am right. Do not forget that I was brought up in a
+hand-to-hand struggle for fortune such as you cannot dream of. When I
+was your age I was a practical man of business, and I had taught myself,
+and it was all on such a small scale that a mistake of a hundred francs
+made the difference between profit and loss. I dislike details, but I
+have been a man of detail all my life, by force of circumstances.
+Successful business implies the comprehension of details. It is tedious
+work, and if you mean to try it you must begin at the beginning. You
+ought to do so. There is an enormous business before you, with
+considerable capabilities in it. If I were in your place, I would take
+what fell naturally to my lot."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Farming. They call it agriculture in parliament, because they do not
+know what farming means. The men who think that Italy can live without
+farmers are fools. We are not a manufacturing people any more than we
+are a business people. The best dictator for us would be a practical
+farmer, a ploughman like Cincinnatus. Nobody who has not tried to raise
+wheat on an Italian mountain-side knows the great difficulties or the
+great possibilities of our country. Do you know that bad as our farming
+is, and absurd as is our system of land taxation, we are food exporters,
+to a small extent? The beginning is there. Take my advice, be a farmer.
+Manage one of the big estates you have amongst you for five or six
+years. You will not do much good to the land in that time, but you will
+learn what land really means. Then go into parliament and tell people
+facts. That is an occupation and a career as well, which cannot be said
+of speculation in building lots, large or small. If you have any ready
+money keep it in government bonds until you have a chance of buying
+something worth keeping."
+
+Orsino went away disappointed and annoyed. San Giacinto's talk about
+farming seemed very dull to him. To bury himself for half a dozen years
+in the country in order to learn the rotation of crops and the
+principles of land draining did not present itself as an attractive
+career. If San Giacinto thought farming the great profession of the
+future, why did he not try it himself? Orsino dismissed the idea rather
+indignantly, and his determination to try his luck became stronger by
+the opposition it met. Moreover he had expected very different language
+from San Giacinto, whose sober view jarred on Orsino's enthusiastic
+impulse.
+
+But he now found himself in considerable difficulty. He was ignorant
+even of the first steps to be taken, and knew no one to whom he could
+apply for information. There was Prince Montevarchi indeed, who though
+he was San Giacinto's brother-in-law, seemed by the latter's account to
+have got into trouble. He did not understand how San Giacinto could
+allow his wife's brother to ruin himself without lending him a helping
+hand, but San Giacinto was not the kind of man of whom people ask
+indiscreet questions, and Orsino had heard that the two men were not on
+the best of terms. Possibly good advice had been offered and refused.
+Such affairs generally end in a breach of friendship. However that might
+be, Orsino would not go to Montevarchi.
+
+He wandered aimlessly about the streets, and the money seemed to burn in
+his pocket, though he had carefully deposited it in a place of safety at
+home. Again and again Del Ferice's story of the carpenter and his two
+companions recurred to his mind. He wondered how they had set about
+beginning, and he wished he could ask Del Ferice himself. He could not
+go to the man's house, but he might possibly meet him at Maria
+Consuelo's. He was surprised to find that he had almost forgotten her in
+his anxiety to become a man of business. It was too early to call yet,
+and in order to kill the time he went home, got a horse from the stables
+and rode out into the country for a couple of hours.
+
+At half-past five o'clock he entered the familiar little sitting-room in
+the hotel. Madame d'Aranjuez was alone, cutting a new book with the
+jewelled knife which continued to be the only object of the kind visible
+in the room. She smiled as Orsino entered, and she laid aside the volume
+as he sat down in his accustomed place.
+
+"I thought you were not coming," she said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You always come at five. It is half-past to-day." Orsino looked at his
+watch.
+
+"Do you notice whether I come or not?" he asked.
+
+Maria Consuelo glanced at his face, and laughed.
+
+"What have you been doing to-day?" she asked. "That is much more
+interesting."
+
+"Is it? I am afraid not. I have been listening to those disagreeable
+things which are called truths by the people who say them. I have
+listened to two lectures delivered by two very intelligent men for my
+especial benefit. It seems to me that as soon as I make a good
+resolution it becomes the duty of sensible people to demonstrate that I
+am a fool."
+
+"You are not in a good humour. Tell me all about it."
+
+"And weary you with my grievances? No. Is Del Ferice coming this
+afternoon?"
+
+"How can I tell? He does not come often."
+
+"I thought he came almost every day," said Orsino gloomily.
+
+He was disappointed, but Maria Consuelo did not understand what was the
+matter. She leaned forward in her low seat, her chin resting upon one
+hand, and her tawny eyes fixed on Orsino's.
+
+"Tell me, my friend--are you unhappy? Can I do anything? Will you tell
+me?"
+
+It was not easy to resist the appeal. Though the two had grown intimate
+of late, there had hitherto always been something cold and reserved
+behind her outwardly friendly manner. To-day she seemed suddenly willing
+to be different. Her easy, graceful attitude, her soft voice full of
+promised sympathy, above all the look in her strange eyes revealed a
+side of her character which Orsino had not suspected and which affected
+him in a way he could not have described.
+
+Without hesitation he told her his story, from beginning to end, simply,
+without comment and without any of the cutting phrases which came so
+readily to his tongue on most occasions. She listened very thoughtfully
+to the end.
+
+"Those things are not misfortunes," she said. "But they may be the
+beginnings of unhappiness. To be unhappy is worse than any misfortune.
+What right has your father to laugh at you? Because he never needed to
+do anything for himself, he thinks it absurd that his son should dislike
+the lazy life that is prepared for him. It is not reasonable--it is not
+kind!"
+
+"Yet he means to be both, I suppose," said Orsino bitterly.
+
+"Oh, of course! People always mean to be the soul of logic and the
+paragon of charity! Especially where their own children are concerned."
+
+Maria Consuelo added the last words with more feeling than seemed
+justified by her sympathy for Orsino's woes. The moment was perhaps
+favourable for asking a leading question about herself, and her answer
+might have thrown light on her problematic past. But Orsino was too busy
+with his own troubles to think of that, and the opportunity slipped by
+and was lost.
+
+"You know now why I want to see Del Ferice," he said. "I cannot go to
+his house. My only chance of talking to him lies here."
+
+"And that is what brings you? You are very flattering!"
+
+"Do not be unjust! We all look forward to meeting our friends in
+heaven."
+
+"Very pretty. I forgive you. But I am afraid that you will not meet Del
+Ferice. I do not think he has left the Chambers yet. There was to be a
+debate this afternoon in which he had to speak."
+
+"Does he make speeches?"
+
+"Very good ones. I have heard him."
+
+"I have never been inside the Chambers," observed Orsino.
+
+"You are not very patriotic. You might go there and ask for Del Ferice.
+You could see him without going to his house--without compromising your
+dignity."
+
+"Why do you laugh?"
+
+"Because it all seems to me so absurd. You know that you are perfectly
+free to go and see him when and where you will. There is nothing to
+prevent you. He is the one man of all others whose advice you need. He
+has an unexceptional position in the world--no doubt he has done strange
+things, but so have dozens of people whom you know--his present
+reputation is excellent, I say. And yet, because some twenty years ago,
+when you were a child, he held one opinion and your father held another,
+you are interdicted from crossing his threshold! If you can shake hands
+with him here, you can take his hand in his own house. Is not that
+true?"
+
+"Theoretically, I daresay, but not in practice. You see it yourself. You
+have chosen one side from the first, and all the people on the other
+side know it. As a foreigner, you are not bound to either, and you can
+know everybody in time, if you please. Society is not so prejudiced as
+to object to that. But because you begin with the Del Ferice in a very
+uncompromising way, it would take a long time for you to know the
+Montevarchi, for instance."
+
+"Who told you that I was a foreigner?" asked Maria Consuelo, rather
+abruptly.
+
+"You yourself--"
+
+"That is good authority!" She laughed. "I do not remember--ah! because I
+do not speak Italian? You mean that? One may forget one's own language,
+or for that matter one may never have learned it."
+
+"Are you Italian, then, Madame?" asked Orsino, surprised that she should
+lead the conversation so directly to a point which he had supposed must
+be reached by a series of tactful approaches.
+
+"Who knows? I am sure I do not. My father was Italian. Does that
+constitute nationality?"
+
+"Yes. But the woman takes the nationality of her husband, I believe,"
+said Orsino, anxious to hear more.
+
+"Ah yes--poor Aranjuez!" Maria Consuelo's voice suddenly took that
+sleepy tone which Orsino had heard more than once. Her eyelids drooped a
+little and she lazily opened and shut her hand, and spread out the
+fingers and looked at them.
+
+But Orsino was not satisfied to let the conversation drop at this point,
+and after a moment's pause he put a decisive question.
+
+"And was Monsieur d'Aranjuez also Italian?" he asked.
+
+"What does it matter?" she asked in the same indolent tone. "Yes, since
+you ask me, he was Italian, poor man."
+
+Orsino was more and more puzzled. That the name did not exist in Italy
+he was almost convinced. He thought of the story of the Signor Aragno,
+who had fallen overboard in the south seas, and then he was suddenly
+aware that he could not believe in anything of the sort. Maria Consuelo
+did not betray a shade of emotion, either, at the mention of her
+deceased husband. She seemed absorbed in the contemplation of her hands.
+Orsino had not been rebuked for his curiosity and would have asked
+another question if he had known how to frame it. An awkward silence
+followed. Maria Consuelo raised her eyes slowly and looked thoughtfully
+into Orsino's face.
+
+"I see," she said at last. "You are curious. I do not know whether you
+have any right to be--have you?"
+
+"I wish I had!" exclaimed Orsino thoughtlessly.
+
+Again she looked at him in silence for some moments.
+
+"I have not known you long enough," she said. "And if I had known you
+longer, perhaps it would not be different. Are other people curious,
+too? Do they talk about me?"
+
+"The people I know do--but they do not know you. They see your name in
+the papers, as a beautiful Spanish princess. Yet everybody is aware that
+there is no Spanish nobleman of your name. Of course they are curious.
+They invent stories about you, which I deny. If I knew more, it would be
+easier."
+
+"Why do you take the trouble to deny such things?"
+
+She asked the question with a change of manner. Once more she leaned
+forward and her face softened wonderfully as she looked at him.
+
+"Can you not guess?" he asked.
+
+He was conscious of a very unusual emotion, not at all in harmony with
+the imaginary character he had chosen for himself, and which he
+generally maintained with considerable success. Maria Consuelo was one
+person when she leaned back in her chair, laughing or idly listening to
+his talk, or repulsing the insignificant declarations of devotion which
+were not even meant to be taken altogether in earnest. She was pretty
+then, attractive, graceful, feminine, a little artificial, perhaps, and
+Orsino felt that he was free to like her or not, as he pleased, but that
+he pleased to like her for the present. She was quite another woman
+to-day, as she bent forward, her tawny eyes growing darker and more
+mysterious every moment, her auburn hair casting wonderful shadows upon
+her broad pale forehead, her lips not closed as usual, but slightly
+parted, her fragrant breath just stirring the quiet air Orsino breathed.
+Her features might be irregular. It did not matter. She was beautiful
+for the moment with a kind of beauty Orsino had never seen, and which
+produced a sudden and overwhelming effect upon him.
+
+"Do you not know?" he asked again, and his voice trembled unexpectedly.
+
+"Thank you," she said softly and she touched his hand almost
+caressingly.
+
+But when he would have taken it, she drew back instantly and was once
+more the woman whom he saw every day, careless, indifferent, pretty.
+
+"Why do you change so quickly?" he asked in a low voice, bending towards
+her. "Why do you snatch your hand away? Are you afraid of me?"
+
+"Why should I be afraid? Are you dangerous?"
+
+"You are. You may be fatal, for all I know."
+
+"How foolish!" she exclaimed, with a quick glance.
+
+"You are Madame d'Aranjuez, now," he answered. "We had better change the
+subject."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"A moment ago you were Consuelo," he said boldly.
+
+"Have I given you any right to say that?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"I am sorry. I will be more careful. I am sure I cannot imagine why you
+should think of me at all, unless when you are talking to me, and then I
+do not wish to be called by my Christian name. I assure you, you are
+never anything in my thoughts but His Excellency Prince Orsino
+Saracinesca--with as many titles after that as may belong to you."
+
+"I have none," said Orsino.
+
+Her speech irritated him strongly, and the illusion which had been so
+powerful a few moments earlier all but disappeared.
+
+"Then you advise me to go and find Del Ferice at Monte Citorio," he
+observed.
+
+"If you like." She laughed. "There is no mistaking your intention when
+you mean to change the subject," she added.
+
+"You made it sufficiently clear that the other was disagreeable to you."
+
+"I did not mean to do so."
+
+"Then in heaven's name, what do you mean, Madame?" he asked, suddenly
+losing his head in his extreme annoyance.
+
+Maria Consuelo raised her eyebrows in surprise.
+
+"Why are you so angry?" she asked. "Do you know that it is very rude to
+speak like that?"
+
+"I cannot help it. What have I done to-day that you should torment me as
+you do?"
+
+"I? I torment you? My dear friend, you are quite mad."
+
+"I know I am. You make me so."
+
+"Will you tell me how? What have I done? What have I said? You Romans
+are certainly the most extraordinary people. It is impossible to please
+you. If one laughs, you become tragic. If one is serious, you grow gay!
+I wish I understood you better."
+
+"You will end by making it impossible for me to understand myself," said
+Orsino. "You say that I am changeable. Then what are you?"
+
+"Very much the same to-day as yesterday," said Maria Consuelo calmly.
+"And I do not suppose that I shall be very different to-morrow."
+
+"At least I will take my chance of finding that you are mistaken," said
+Orsino, rising suddenly, and standing before her.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked, as though she were surprised.
+
+"Since I cannot please you."
+
+"Since you will not."
+
+"I do not know how."
+
+"Be yourself--the same that you always are. You are affecting to be some
+one else, to-day."
+
+"I fancy it is the other way," answered Orsino, with more truth than he
+really owned to himself.
+
+"Then I prefer the affectation to the reality."
+
+"As you will, Madame. Good evening."
+
+He crossed the room to go out. She called him back.
+
+"Don Orsino!"
+
+He turned sharply round.
+
+"Madame?"
+
+Seeing that he did not move, she rose and went to him. He looked down
+into her face and saw that it was changed again.
+
+"Are you really angry?" she asked. There was something girlish in the
+way she asked the question, and, for a moment, in her whole manner.
+
+Orsino could not help smiling. But he said nothing.
+
+"No, you are not," she continued. "I can see it. Do you know? I am very
+glad. It was foolish of me to tease you. You will forgive me? This
+once?"
+
+"If you will give me warning the next time." He found that he was
+looking into her eyes.
+
+"What is the use of warning?" she asked.
+
+They were very close together, and there was a moment's silence.
+Suddenly Orsino forgot everything and bent down, clasping her in his
+arms and kissing her again and again. It was brutal, rough, senseless,
+but he could not help it.
+
+Maria Consuelo uttered a short, sharp cry, more of surprise, perhaps,
+than of horror. To Orsino's amazement and confusion her voice was
+immediately answered by another, which was that of the dark and usually
+silent maid, whom he had seen once or twice. The woman ran into the
+room, terrified by the cry she had heard.
+
+"Madame felt faint in crossing the room, and was falling when I caught
+her," said Orsino, with a coolness that did him credit.
+
+And, in fact, Maria Consuelo closed her eyes as he let her sink into the
+nearest chair. The maid fell on her knees beside her mistress and began
+chafing her hands.
+
+"The poor Signora!" she exclaimed. "She should never be left alone! She
+has not been herself since the poor Signore died. You had better leave
+us, sir--I will put her to bed when she revives. It often happens--pray
+do not be anxious!"
+
+Orsino picked up his hat and left the room.
+
+"Oh--it often happens, does it?" he said to himself as he closed the
+door softly behind him and walked down the corridor of the hotel.
+
+He was more amazed at his own boldness than he cared to own. He had not
+supposed that scenes of this description produced themselves so very
+unexpectedly, and, as it were, without any fixed intention on the part
+of the chief actor. He remembered that he had been very angry with
+Madame d'Aranjuez, that she had spoken half a dozen words, and that he
+had felt an irresistible impulse to kiss her. He had done so, and he
+thought with considerable trepidation of their next meeting. She had
+screamed, which showed that she was outraged by his boldness. It was
+doubtful whether she would receive him again. The best thing to be done,
+he thought, was to write her a very humble letter of apology, explaining
+his conduct as best he could. This did not accord very well with his
+principles, but he had already transgressed them in being so excessively
+hasty. Her eyes had certainly been provoking in the extreme, and it had
+been impossible to resist the expression on her lips. But at all events,
+he should have begun by kissing her hand, which she would certainly not
+have withdrawn again--then he might have put his arm round her and drawn
+her head to his shoulder. These were preliminaries in the matter of
+kissing which it was undoubtedly right to observe, and he had culpably
+neglected them. He had been abominably brutal, and he ought to
+apologise. Nevertheless, he would not have forfeited the recollection of
+that moment for all the other recollections of his life, and he knew it.
+As he walked along the street he felt a wild exhilaration such as he had
+never known before. He owned gladly to himself that he loved Maria
+Consuelo, and resolutely thrust away the idea that his boyish vanity was
+pleased by the snatching of a kiss.
+
+Whatever the real nature of his delight might be it was for the time so
+sincere that he even forgot to light a cigarette in order to think over
+the circumstances.
+
+Walking rapidly up the Corso he came to the Piazza Colonna, and the
+glare of the electric light somehow recalled him to himself.
+
+"Great speech of the Honourable Del Ferice!" yelled a newsboy in his
+ear. "Ministerial crisis! Horrible murder of a grocer!"
+
+Orsino mechanically turned to the right in the direction of the
+Chambers. Del Ferice had probably gone home, since his speech was
+already in print. But fate had ordained otherwise. Del Ferice had
+corrected his proofs on the spot and had lingered to talk with his
+friends before going home. Not that it mattered much, for Orsino could
+have found him as well on the following day. His brougham was standing
+in front of the great entrance and he himself was shaking hands with a
+tall man under the light of the lamps. Orsino went up to him.
+
+"Could you spare me a quarter of an hour?" asked the young man in a
+voice constrained by excitement. He felt that he was embarked at last
+upon his great enterprise.
+
+Del Ferice looked up in some astonishment. He had reason to dread the
+quarrelsome disposition of the Saracinesca as a family, and he wondered
+what Orsino wanted.
+
+"Certainly, certainly, Don Orsino," he answered, with a particularly
+bland smile. "Shall we drive, or at least sit in my carriage? I am a
+little fatigued with my exertions to-day."
+
+The tall man bowed and strolled away, biting the end of an unlit cigar.
+
+"It is a matter of business," said Orsino, before entering the carriage.
+"Can you help me to try my luck--in a very small way--in one of the
+building enterprises you manage?"
+
+"Of course I can, and will," answered Del Ferice, more and more
+astonished. "After you, my dear Don Orsino, after you," he repeated,
+pushing the young man into the brougham. "Quiet streets--till I stop
+you," he said to the footman, as he himself got in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Del Ferice was surprised beyond measure at Orsino's request, and was not
+guilty of any profoundly nefarious intention when he so readily acceded
+to it. His own character made him choose as a rule to refuse nothing
+that was asked of him, though his promises were not always fulfilled
+afterwards. To express his own willingness to help those who asked, was
+of course not the same as asserting his power to give assistance when
+the time should come. In the present case he did not even make up his
+mind which of two courses he would ultimately pursue. Orsino came to him
+with a small sum of ready money in his hand. Del Ferice had it in his
+power to make him lose that sum, and a great deal more besides, thereby
+causing the boy endless trouble with his family; or else the banker
+could, if he pleased, help him to a very considerable success. His
+really superior talent for diplomacy inclined him to choose the latter
+plan, but he was far too cautious to make any hasty decision.
+
+The brougham rolled on through quiet and ill-lighted streets, and Del
+Ferice leaned back in his corner, not listening at all to Orsino's talk,
+though he occasionally uttered a polite though utterly unintelligible
+syllable or two which might mean anything agreeable to his companion's
+views. The situation was easy enough to understand, and he had grasped
+it in a moment. What Orsino might say was of no importance whatever, but
+the consequences of any action on Del Ferice's part might be serious and
+lasting.
+
+Orsino stated his many reasons for wishing to engage in business, as he
+had stated them more than once already during the day and during the
+past weeks, and when he had finished he repeated his first question.
+
+"Can you help me to try my luck?" he asked.
+
+Del Ferice awoke from his reverie with characteristic readiness and
+realised that he must say something. His voice had never been strong and
+he leaned out of his corner of the carriage in order to speak near
+Orsino's ear.
+
+"I am delighted with all you say," he began, "and I scarcely need repeat
+that my services are altogether at your disposal. The only question is,
+how are we to begin? The sum you mention is certainly not large, but
+that does not matter. You would have little difficulty in raising as
+many hundreds of thousands as you have thousands, if money were
+necessary. But in business of this kind the only ready money needed is
+for stamp duty and for the wages of workmen, and the banks advance what
+is necessary for the latter purpose, in small sums on notes of hand
+guaranteed by a general mortgage. When you have paid the stamp duties,
+you may go to the club and lose the balance of your capital at baccarat
+if you please. The loss in that direction will not affect your credit as
+a contractor. All that is very simple. You wish to succeed, however, not
+at cards, but at business. That is the difficulty."
+
+Del Ferice paused.
+
+"That is not very clear to me," observed Orsino.
+
+"No--no," answered Del Ferice thoughtfully. "No--I daresay it is not so
+very clear. I wish I could make it clearer. Speculation means gambling
+only when the speculator is a gambler. Of course there are successful
+gamblers in the world, but there are not many of them. I read somewhere
+the other day that business was the art of handling other
+people's-money. The remark is not particularly true. Business is the art
+of creating a value where none has yet existed. That is what you wish to
+do. I do not think that a Saracinesca would take pleasure in turning
+over money not belonging to him."
+
+"Certainly not!" exclaimed Orsino. "That is usury."
+
+"Not exactly, but it is banking; and banking, it is quite true, is usury
+within legal bounds. There is no question of that here. The operation is
+simple in the extreme. I sell you a piece of land on the understanding
+that you will build upon it, and instead of payment you give me a
+mortgage. I lend you money from month to month in small sums at a small
+interest, to pay for material and labour. You are only responsible upon
+one point. The money is to be used for the purpose stated. When the
+building is finished you sell it. If you sell it for cash, you pay off
+the mortgage, and receive the difference. If you sell it with the
+mortgage, the buyer becomes the mortgager and only pays you the
+difference, which remains yours, out and out. That is the whole process
+from beginning to end."
+
+"How wonderfully simple!"
+
+"It is almost primitive in its simplicity," answered Del Ferice gravely.
+"But in every case two difficulties present themselves, and I am bound
+to tell you that they are serious ones."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"You must know how to buy in the right part of the city and you must
+have a competent assistant. The two conditions are indispensable."
+
+"What sort of an assistant?" asked Orsino.
+
+"A practical man. If possible, an architect, who will then have a share
+of the profits instead of being paid for his work."
+
+"Is it very hard to find such a person?"
+
+"It is not easy."
+
+"Do you think you could help me?"
+
+"I do not know. I am assuming a great responsibility in doing so. You do
+not seem to realise that, Don Orsino."
+
+Del Ferice laughed a little in his quiet way, but Orsino was silent. It
+was the first time that the banker had reminded him of the vast
+difference in their social and political positions.
+
+"I do not think it would be very wise of me to help you into such a
+business as this," said Del Ferice cautiously. "I speak quite selfishly
+and for my own sake. Success is never certain, and it would be a great
+injury to me if you failed."
+
+He was beginning to make up his mind.
+
+"Why?" asked Orsino. His own instincts of generosity were aroused. He
+would certainly not do Del Ferice an injury if he could help it, nor
+allow him to incur the risk of one.
+
+"If you fail," answered the other, "all Rome will say that I have
+intentionally brought about your failure. You know how people talk.
+Thousands will become millions and I shall be accused of having plotted
+the destruction of your family, because your father once wounded me in a
+duel, nearly five and twenty years ago."
+
+"How absurd!"
+
+"No, no. It is not absurd. I am afraid I have the reputation of being
+vindictive. Well, well--it is in bad taste to talk of oneself. I am good
+at hating, perhaps, but I have always felt that I preferred peace to
+war, and now I am growing old. I am not what I once was, Don Orsino, and
+I do not like quarrelling. But I would not allow people to say
+impertinent things about me, and if you failed and lost money, I should
+be abused by your friends, and perhaps censured by my own. Do you see?
+Yes, I am selfish. I admit it. You must forgive that weakness in me. I
+like peace."
+
+"It is very natural," said Orsino, "and I have no right to put you in
+danger of the slightest inconvenience. But, after all, why need I appear
+before the public?"
+
+Del Ferice smiled in the dark.
+
+"True," he answered. "You could establish an anonymous firm, so to say,
+and the documents would be a secret between you and me and the notary.
+Of course there are many ways of managing such an affair quietly."
+
+He did not add that the secret could only be kept so long as Orsino was
+successful. It seemed a pity to damp so much good enthusiasm.
+
+"We will do that, then, if you will show me how. My ambition is not to
+see my name on a door-plate, but to be really occupied."
+
+"I understand, I understand," said Del Ferice thoughtfully. "I must ask
+you to give me until to-morrow to consider the matter. It needs a little
+thought."
+
+"Where can I find you, to hear your decision?"
+
+Del Ferice was silent for a moment.
+
+"I think I once met you late in the afternoon at Madame d'Aranjuez's. We
+might manage to meet there to-morrow and come away together. Shall we
+name an hour? Would it suit you?"
+
+"Perfectly," answered Orsino with alacrity.
+
+The idea of meeting Maria Consuelo alone was very disturbing in his
+present state of mind. He felt that he had lost his balance in his
+relations with her, and that in order to regain it he must see her in
+the presence of a third person, if only for a quarter of an hour. It
+would be easier, then, to resume the former intercourse and to say
+whatever he should determine upon saying. If she were offended, she
+would at least not show it in any marked way before Del Ferice. Orsino's
+existence, he thought, was becoming complicated for the first time, and
+though he enjoyed the vague sensation of impending difficulty, he wanted
+as many opportunities as possible of reviewing the situation and of
+meditating upon each new move.
+
+He got out of Del Ferice's carriage at no great distance from his own
+home, and after a few words of very sincere thanks walked slowly away.
+He found it very hard to arrange his thoughts in any consecutive order,
+though he tried several methods of self-analysis, and repeated to
+himself that he had experienced a great happiness and was probably on
+the threshold of a great success. These two reflections did not help him
+much. The happiness had been of the explosive kind, and the success in
+the business matter was more than problematic, as well as certainly
+distant in the future.
+
+He was very restless and craved the immediate excitement of further
+emotions, so that he would certainly have gone to the club that night,
+had not the fear of losing his small and precious capital deterred him.
+He thought of all that was coming and he determined to be careful, even
+sordid if necessary, rather than lose his chance of making the great
+attempt. Besides, he would cut a poor figure on the morrow if he were
+obliged to admit to Del Ferice that he had lost his fifteen thousand
+francs and was momentarily penniless. He accordingly shut himself up in
+his own room at an early hour, and smoked in solitude until he was
+sleepy, reviewing the various events of the day, or trying to do so,
+though his mind reverted constantly to the one chief event of all, to
+the unaccountable outburst of passion by which he had perhaps offended
+Maria Consuelo beyond forgiveness. With all his affectation of
+cynicism he had not learned that sin is easy only because it meets with
+such very general encouragement. Even if he had been aware of that
+undeniable fact, the knowledge might not have helped him very
+materially.
+
+The hours passed very slowly during the next day, and even when the
+appointed time had come, Orsino allowed another quarter of an hour to go
+by before he entered the hotel and ascended to the little sitting-room
+in which Maria Consuelo received. He meant to be sure that Del Ferice
+was there before entering, but he was too proud to watch for the
+latter's coming, or to inquire of the porter whether Maria Consuelo were
+alone or not. It seemed simpler in every way to appear a little late.
+
+But Del Ferice was a busy man and not always punctual, so that to
+Orsino's considerable confusion, he found Maria Consuelo alone, in spite
+of his precaution. He was so much surprised as to become awkward, for
+the first time in his life, and he felt the blood rising in his face,
+dark as he was.
+
+"Will you forgive me?" he asked, almost timidly, as he held out his
+hand.
+
+Maria Consuelo's tawny eyes looked curiously at him. Then she smiled
+suddenly.
+
+"My dear child," she said, "you should not do such things! It is very
+foolish, you know."
+
+The answer was so unexpected and so exceedingly humiliating, as Orsino
+thought at first, that he grew pale and drew back a little. But Maria
+Consuelo took no notice of his behaviour, and settled herself in her
+accustomed chair.
+
+"Did you find Del Ferice last night?" she asked, changing the subject
+without the least hesitation.
+
+"Yes," answered Orsino.
+
+Almost before the word was spoken there was a knock at the door and Del
+Ferice appeared. Orsino's face cleared, as though something pleasant had
+happened, and Maria Consuelo observed the fact. She concluded, naturally
+enough, that the two men had agreed to meet in her sitting-room, and
+she resented the punctuality which she supposed they had displayed in
+coming almost together, especially after what had happened on the
+preceding day. She noted the cordiality with which they greeted each
+other and she felt sure that she was right. On the other hand she could
+not afford to show the least coldness to Del Ferice, lest he should
+suppose that she was annoyed at being disturbed in her conversation with
+Orsino. The situation was irritating to her, but she made the best of it
+and began to talk to Del Ferice about the speech he had made on the
+previous evening. He had spoken well, and she found it easy to be just
+and flattering at the same time.
+
+"It must be an immense satisfaction to speak as you do," said Orsino,
+wishing to say something at least agreeable.
+
+Del Ferice acknowledged the compliment by a deprecatory gesture.
+
+"To speak as some of my colleagues can--yes--it must be a great
+satisfaction. But Madame d'Aranjuez exaggerates. And, besides, I only
+make speeches when I am called upon to do so. Speeches are wasted in
+nine cases out of ten, too. They are, if I may say so, the music at the
+political ball. Sometimes the guests will dance, and sometimes they will
+not, but the musicians must try and suit the taste of the great invited.
+The dancing itself is the thing."
+
+"Deeds not words," suggested Maria Consuelo, glancing at Orsino, who
+chanced to be looking at her.
+
+"That is a good motto enough," he said gloomily.
+
+"Deeds may need explanation, _post facto_," remarked Del Ferice,
+unconsciously making such a direct allusion to recent events that Orsino
+looked sharply at him, and Maria Consuelo smiled.
+
+"That is true," she said.
+
+"And when you need any one to help you, it is necessary to explain your
+purpose beforehand," observed Del Ferice. "That is what happens so often
+in politics, and in other affairs of life as well. If a man takes money
+from me without my consent, he steals, but if I agree to his taking it,
+the transaction becomes a gift or a loan. A despotic government steals,
+a constitutional one borrows or receives free offerings. The fact that
+the despot pays interest on a part of what he steals raises him to the
+position of the magnanimous brigand who leaves his victims just enough
+money to carry them to the nearest town. Possibly it is after all a
+quibble of definitions, and the difference may not be so great as it
+seems at first sight. But then, all morality is but the shadow cast on
+one side or the other of a definition."
+
+"Surely that is not your political creed!" said Maria Consuelo.
+
+"Certainly not, Madame, certainly not," answered Del Ferice in gentle
+protest. "It is not a creed at all, but only a very poor explanation of
+the way in which most experienced people look upon the events of their
+day. The idea in which we believe is very different from the results it
+has brought about, and very much higher, and very much better. But the
+results are not all bad either. Unfortunately the bad ones are on the
+surface, and the good ones, which are enduring, must be sought in places
+where the honest sunshine has not yet dispelled the early shadows."
+
+Maria Consuelo smiled faintly, and the slight cast in her eyes was more
+than usually apparent, as though her attention were wandering. Orsino
+said nothing, and wondered why Del Ferice continued to talk. The latter,
+indeed, was allowing himself to run on because neither of his hearers
+seemed inclined to make a remark which might serve to turn the
+conversation, and he began to suspect that something had occurred before
+his coming which had disturbed their equanimity.
+
+He presently began to talk of people instead of ideas, for he had no
+intention of being thought a bore by Madame d'Aranjuez, and the man who
+is foolish enough to talk of anything but his neighbours, when he has
+more than one hearer, is in danger of being numbered with the
+tormentors.
+
+Half an hour passed quickly enough after the common chord had been
+struck, and Del Ferice and Orsino exchanged glances of intelligence,
+meaning to go away together as had been agreed. Del Ferice rose first,
+and Orsino took up his hat. To his surprise and consternation Maria
+Consuelo made a quick and imperative sign to him to remain. Del Ferice's
+dull blue eyes saw most things that happened within the range of their
+vision, and neither the gesture nor the look that accompanied it escaped
+him.
+
+Orsino's position was extremely awkward. He had put Del Ferice to some
+inconvenience on the understanding that they were to go away together
+and did not wish to offend him by not keeping his engagement. On the
+other hand it was next to impossible to disobey Maria Consuelo, and to
+explain his difficulty to Del Ferice was wholly out of the question. He
+almost wished that the latter might have seen and understood the signal.
+But Del Ferice made no sign and took Maria Consuelo's offered hand, in
+the act of leavetaking. Orsino grew desperate and stood beside the two,
+holding his hat. Del Ferice turned to shake hands with him also.
+
+"But perhaps you are going too," he said, with a distinct interrogation.
+
+Orsino glanced at Maria Consuelo as though imploring her permission to
+take his leave, but her face was impenetrable, calm and indifferent.
+
+Del Ferice understood perfectly what was taking place, but he found a
+moment while Orsino hesitated. If the latter had known how completely he
+was in Del Ferice's power throughout the little scene, he would have
+then and there thrown over his financial schemes in favour of Maria
+Consuelo. But Del Ferice's quiet, friendly manner did not suggest
+despotism, and he did not suffer Orsino's embarrassment to last more
+than five seconds.
+
+"I have a little proposition to make," said the fat count, turning
+again to Maria Consuelo. "My wife and I are alone this evening. Will you
+not come and dine with us, Madame? And you, Don Orsino, will you not
+come too? We shall just make a party of four, if you will both come."
+
+"I shall be enchanted!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo without hesitation.
+
+"I shall be delighted!" answered Orsino with an alacrity which surprised
+himself.
+
+"At eight then," said Del Ferice, shaking hands with him again, and in a
+moment he was gone.
+
+Orsino was too much confused, and too much delighted at having escaped
+so easily from his difficulty to realise the importance of the step he
+was taking in going to Del Fence's house, or to ask himself why the
+latter had so opportunely extended the invitation. He sat down in his
+place with a sigh of relief.
+
+"You have compromised yourself for ever," said Maria Consuelo with a
+scornful laugh. "You, the blackest of the Black, are to be numbered
+henceforth with the acquaintances of Count Del Ferice and Donna Tullia."
+
+"What difference does it make? Besides, I could not have done
+otherwise."
+
+"You might have refused the dinner."
+
+"I could not possibly have done that. To accept was the only way out of
+a great difficulty."
+
+"What difficulty?" asked Maria Consuelo relentlessly.
+
+Orsino was silent, wondering how he could explain, as explain he must,
+without offending her.
+
+"You should not do such things," she said suddenly. "I will not always
+forgive you."
+
+A gleam of light which, indeed, promised little forgiveness, flashed in
+her eyes.
+
+"What things?" asked Orsino.
+
+"Do not pretend that you think me so simple," she said, in a tone of
+irritation. "You and Del Ferice come here almost at the same moment.
+When he goes, you show the utmost anxiety to go too. Of course you have
+agreed to meet here. It is evident. You might have chosen the steps of
+the hotel for your place of meeting instead of my sitting-room."
+
+The colour rose slowly in her cheeks. She was handsome when she was
+angry.
+
+"If I had imagined that you could be displeased--"
+
+"Is it so surprising? Have you forgotten what happened yesterday? You
+should be on your knees, asking my forgiveness for that--and instead,
+you make a convenience of your visit to-day in order to meet a man of
+business. You have very strange ideas of what is due to a woman."
+
+"Del Fence suggested it," said Orsino, "and I accepted the suggestion."
+
+"What is Del Ferice to me, that I should be made the victim of his
+suggestions, as you call them? Besides, he does not know anything of
+your folly of yesterday, and he has no right to suspect it."
+
+"I cannot tell you how sorry I am."
+
+"And yet you ought to tell me, if you expect that I will forget all
+this. You cannot? Then be so good as to do the only other sensible thing
+in your power, and leave me as soon as possible."
+
+"Forgive me, this once!" Orsino entreated in great distress, but not
+finding any words to express his sense of humiliation.
+
+"You are not eloquent," she said scornfully. "You had better go. Do not
+come to the dinner this evening, either. I would rather not see you. You
+can easily make an excuse."
+
+Orsino recovered himself suddenly.
+
+"I will not go away now, and I will not give up the dinner to-night," he
+said quietly.
+
+"I cannot make you do either--but I can leave you," said Maria Consuelo,
+with a movement as though she were about to rise from her chair.
+
+"You will not do that," Orsino answered.
+
+She raised her eyebrows in real or affected surprise at his persistence.
+
+"You seem very sure of yourself," she said. "Do not be so sure of me."
+
+"I am sure that I love you. Nothing else matters." He leaned forward and
+took her hand, so quickly that she had not time to prevent him. She
+tried to draw it away, but he held it fast.
+
+"Let me go!" she cried. "I will call, if you do not!"
+
+"Call all Rome if you will, to see me ask your forgiveness. Consuelo--do
+not be so hard and cruel--if you only knew how I love you, you would be
+sorry for me, you would see how I hate myself, how I despise myself for
+all this--"
+
+"You might show a little more feeling," she said, making a final effort
+to disengage her hand, and then relinquishing the struggle.
+
+Orsino wondered whether he were really in love with her or not. Somehow,
+the words he sought did not rise to his lips, and he was conscious that
+his speech was not of the same temperature, so to say, as his actions.
+There was something in Maria Consuelo's manner which disturbed him
+disagreeably, like a cold draught blowing unexpectedly through a warm
+room. Still he held her hand and endeavoured to rise to the occasion.
+
+"Consuelo!" he cried in a beseeching tone. "Do not send me away--see how
+I am suffering--it is so easy for you to say that you forgive!"
+
+She looked at him a moment, and her eyelids drooped suddenly.
+
+"Will you let me go, if I forgive you?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I forgive you then. Well? Do you still hold my hand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He leaned forward and tried to draw her toward him, looking into her
+eyes. She yielded a little, and their faces came a little nearer to
+each other, and still a little nearer. All at once a deep blush rose in
+her cheeks, she turned her head away and drew back quickly.
+
+"Not for all the world!" she exclaimed, in a tone that was new to
+Orsino's ear.
+
+He tried to take her hand again, but she would not give it.
+
+"No, no! Go--you are not to be trusted!" she cried, avoiding him.
+
+"Why are you so unkind?" he asked, almost passionately.
+
+"I have been kind enough for this day," she answered. "Pray go--do not
+stay any longer--I may regret it."
+
+"My staying?"
+
+"No--my kindness. And do not come again for the present. I would rather
+see you at Del Ferice's than here."
+
+Orsino was quite unable to understand her behaviour, and an older and
+more experienced man might have been almost as much puzzled as he. A
+long silence followed, during which he sat quite still and she looked
+steadily at the cover of a book which lay on the table.
+
+"Please go," she said at last, in a voice which was not unkind.
+
+Orsino rose from his seat and prepared to obey her, reluctantly enough
+and feeling that he was out of tune with himself and with everything.
+
+"Will you not even tell me why you send me away?" he asked.
+
+"Because I wish to be alone," she answered. "Good-bye."
+
+She did not look up as he left the room, and when he was gone she did
+not move from her place, but sat as she had sat before, staring at the
+yellow cover of the novel on the table.
+
+Orsino went home in a very unsettled frame of mind, and was surprised to
+find that the lighted streets looked less bright and cheerful than on
+the previous evening, and his own immediate prospects far less
+pleasing. He was angry with himself for having been so foolish as to
+make his visit to Maria Consuelo a mere appointment with Del Ferice, and
+he was surprised beyond measure to find himself suddenly engaged in a
+social acquaintance with the latter, when he had only meant to enter
+into relations of business with him. Yet it did not occur to him that
+Del Ferice had in any way entrapped him into accepting the invitation.
+Del Ferice had saved him from a very awkward situation. Why? Because Del
+Ferice had seen the gesture Maria Consuelo had made, and had understood
+it, and wished to give Orsino another opportunity of discussing his
+project. But if Del Ferice had seen the quick sign, he had probably
+interpreted it in a way compromising to Madame d'Aranjuez. This was
+serious, though it was assuredly not Orsino's fault if she compromised
+herself. She might have let him go without question, and since an
+explanation of some sort was necessary she might have waited until the
+next day to demand it of him. He resented what she had done, and yet
+within the last quarter of an hour, he had been making a declaration of
+love to her. He was further conscious that the said declaration had been
+wholly lacking in spirit, in passion and even in eloquence. He probably
+did not love her after all, and with an attempt at his favourite
+indifference he tried to laugh at himself.
+
+But the effort was not successful, and he felt something approaching to
+pain as he realised that there was nothing to laugh at. He remembered
+her eyes and her face and the tones of her voice, and he imagined that
+if he could turn back now and see her again, he could say in one breath
+such things as would move a statue to kisses. The very phrases rose to
+his lips and he repeated them to himself as he walked along.
+
+Most unaccountable of all had been Maria Consuelo's own behaviour. Her
+chief preoccupation seemed to have been to get rid of him as soon as
+possible. She had been very seriously offended with him to-day, much
+more deeply, indeed, than yesterday, though, the cause appeared to his
+inexperience to be a far less adequate one. It was evident, he thought,
+that she had not really pardoned his want of tact, but had yielded to
+the necessity of giving a reluctant forgiveness, merely because she did
+not wish to break off her acquaintance with him. On the other hand, she
+had allowed him to say again and again that he loved her, and she had
+not forbidden him to call her by her name.
+
+He had always heard that it was hard to understand women, and he began
+to believe it. There was one hypothesis which he had not considered. It
+was faintly possible that she loved him already, though he was slow to
+believe that, his vanity lying in another direction. But even if she
+did, matters were not clearer. The supposition could not account for her
+sending him away so abruptly and with such evident intention. If she
+loved him, she would naturally, he supposed, wish him to stay as long as
+possible. She had only wished to keep him long enough to tell him how
+angry she was. He resented that again, for he was in the humour to
+resent most things.
+
+It was all extremely complicated, and Orsino began to think that he
+might find the complication less interesting than he had expected a few
+hours earlier. He had little time for reflection either, since he was to
+meet both Maria Consuelo and Del Ferice at dinner. He felt as though the
+coming evening were in a measure to decide his future existence, and it
+was indeed destined to exercise a great influence upon his life, as any
+person not disturbed by the anxieties which beset him might easily have
+foreseen.
+
+Before leaving the house he made an excuse to his mother, saying that he
+had unexpectedly been asked to dine with friends, and at the appointed
+hour he rang at Del Ferice's door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Orsino looked about him with some curiosity as he entered Del Fence's
+abode. He had never expected to find himself the guest of Donna Tullia
+and her husband and when he took the robust countess's hand he was
+inclined to wish that the whole affair might turn out to be a dream. In
+vain he repeated to himself that he was no longer a boy, but a grown
+man, of age in the eyes of the law to be responsible for his own
+actions, and old enough in fact to take what steps he pleased for the
+accomplishment of his own ends. He found no solace in the reflection,
+and he could not rid himself of the idea that he had got himself into a
+very boyish scrape. It would indeed have been very easy to refuse Del
+Ferice's invitation and to write him a note within the hour explaining
+vaguely that circumstances beyond his control obliged him to ask another
+interview for the discussion of business matters. But it was too late
+now. He was exchanging indifferent remarks with Donna Tullia, while Del
+Ferice looked on benignantly, and all three waited for Madame
+d'Aranjuez.
+
+Five minutes had not elapsed before she came, and her appearance
+momentarily dispelled Orsino's annoyance at his own rashness. He had
+never before seen her dressed for the evening, and he had not realised
+how much to her advantage the change from the ordinary costume, or the
+inevitable "tea-garment," to a dinner gown would be. She was assuredly
+not over-dressed, for she wore black without colours and her only
+ornament was a single string of beautiful pearls which Donna Tullia
+believed to be false, but which Orsino accepted as real. Possibly he
+knew even more about pearls than the countess, for his mother had many
+and wore them often, whereas Donna Tullia preferred diamonds and rubies.
+But his eyes did not linger on the necklace, for Maria Consuelo's whole
+presence affected him strangely. There was something light-giving and
+even dazzling about her which he had not expected, and he understood for
+the first time that the language of the newspaper paragraphs was not so
+grossly flattering as he had supposed. In spite of the great artistic
+defects of feature, which could not long escape an observer of ordinary
+taste, it was clear that Maria Consuelo must always be a striking and
+central figure in any social assembly, great or small. There had been
+moments in Orsino's acquaintance with her, when he had thought her
+really beautiful; as she now appeared, one of those moments seemed to
+have become permanent. He thought of what he had dared on the preceding
+day, his vanity was pleased and his equanimity restored. With a sense of
+pride which was very far from being delicate and was by no means well
+founded, he watched her as she walked in to dinner before him, leaning
+on Del Ferice's arm.
+
+"Beautiful--eh? I see you think so," whispered Donna Tullia in his ear.
+
+The countess treated him at once as an old acquaintance, which put him
+at his ease, while it annoyed his conscience.
+
+"Very beautiful," he answered, with a grave nod.
+
+"And so mysterious," whispered the countess again, just as they reached
+the door of the dining-room. "She is very fascinating--take care!"
+
+She tapped his arm familiarly with her fan and laughed, as he left her
+at her seat.
+
+"What are you two laughing at?" asked Del Ferice, smiling pleasantly as
+he surveyed the six oysters he found upon his plate, and considered
+which should be left until the last as the crowning tit-bit. He was fond
+of good eating, and especially fond of oysters as an introduction to the
+feast.
+
+"What we were laughing at? How indiscreet you are, Ugo! You always want
+to find out all my little secrets. Consuelo, my dear, do you like
+oysters, or do you not? That is the question. You do, I know--a little
+lemon and a very little red pepper--I love red, even to adoring
+cayenne!"
+
+Orsino glanced at Madame d'Aranjuez, for he was surprised to hear Donna
+Tullia call her by her first name. He had not known that the two women
+had reached the first halting place of intimacy.
+
+Maria Consuelo smiled rather vaguely as she took the advice in the shape
+of lemon juice and pepper. Del Ferice could not interrupt his enjoyment
+of the oysters by words, and Orsino waited for an opportunity of saying
+something witty.
+
+"I have lately formed the highest opinion of the ancient Romans," said
+Donna Tullia, addressing him. "Do you know why?"
+
+Orsino professed his ignorance.
+
+"Ugo tells me that in a recent excavation twenty cartloads of oyster
+shells were discovered behind one house. Think of that! Twenty cartloads
+to a single house! What a family must have lived there--indeed the
+Romans were a great people!"
+
+Orsino thought that Donna Tullia herself might pass for a heroine in
+future ages, provided that the shells of her victims were deposited
+together in a safe place. He laughed politely and hoped that the
+conversation might not turn upon archaeology, which was not his strong
+point.
+
+"I wonder how long it will be before modern Rome is excavated and the
+foreigner of the future pays a franc to visit the ruins of the modern
+house of parliament," suggested Maria Consuelo, who had said nothing as
+yet.
+
+"At the present rate of progress, I should think about two years would
+be enough," answered Donna Tullia. "But Ugo says we are a great nation.
+Ask him."
+
+"Ah, my angel, you do not understand those things," said Del Ferice.
+"How shall I explain? There is no development without decay of the
+useless parts. The snake casts its old skin before it appears with a new
+one. And there can be no business without an occasional crisis.
+Unbroken fair weather ends in a dead calm. Why do you take such a gloomy
+view, Madame?"
+
+"One should never talk of things--only people are amusing," said Donna
+Tullia, before Madame d'Aranjuez could answer. "Whom have you seen
+to-day, Consuelo? And you, Don Orsino? And you, Ugo? Are we to talk for
+ever of oysters, and business and snakes? Come, tell me, all of you,
+what everybody has told you. There must be something new. Of course that
+poor Carantoni is going to be married again, and the Princess Befana is
+dying, as usual, and the same dear old people have run away with each
+other, and all that. Of course. I wish things were not always just going
+to happen. One would like to hear what is said on the day after the
+events which never come off. It would be a novelty."
+
+Donna Tullia loved talk and noise, and gossip above all things, and she
+was not quite at her ease. The news that Orsino was to come to dinner
+had taken her breath away. Ugo had advised her to be natural, and she
+was doing her best to follow his advice.
+
+"As for me," he said, "I have been tormented all day, and have spent but
+one pleasant half hour. I was so fortunate as to find Madame d'Aranjuez
+at home, but that was enough to indemnify me for many sacrifices."
+
+"I cannot do better than say the same," observed Orsino, though with far
+less truth. "I believe I have read through a new novel, but I do not
+remember the title and I have forgotten the story."
+
+"How satisfactory!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo, with a little scorn.
+
+"It is the only way to read novels," answered Orsino, "for it leaves
+them always new to you, and the same one may be made to last several
+weeks."
+
+"I have heard it said that one should fear the man of one book,"
+observed Maria Consuelo, looking at him.
+
+"For my part, I am more inclined to fear the woman of many."
+
+"Do you read much, my dear Consuelo?" asked Donna Tullia, laughing.
+
+"Perpetually."
+
+"And is Don Orsino afraid of you?"
+
+"Mortally," answered Orsino. "Madame d'Aranjuez knows everything."
+
+"Is she blue, then?" asked Donna Tullia.
+
+"What shall I say, Madame?" inquired Orsino, turning to Maria Consuelo.
+"Is it a compliment to compare you to the sky of Italy?"
+
+"For blueness?"
+
+"No--for brightness and serenity."
+
+"Thanks. That is pretty. I accept."
+
+"And have you nothing for me?" asked Donna Tullia, with an engaging
+smile.
+
+The other two looked at Orsino, wondering what he would say in answer to
+such a point-blank demand for flattery.
+
+"Juno is still Minerva's ally," he said, falling back upon mythology,
+though it struck him that Del Ferice would make a poor Jupiter, with his
+fat white face and dull eyes.
+
+"Very good!" laughed Donna Tullia. "A little classic, but I pressed you
+hard. You are not easily caught. Talking of clever men," she added with
+another meaning glance at Orsino, "I met your friend to-day, Consuelo."
+
+"My friend? Who is he?"
+
+"Spicca, of course. Whom did you think I meant? We always laugh at her,"
+she said, turning to Orsino, "because she hates him so. She does not
+know him, and has never spoken to him. It is his cadaverous face that
+frightens her. One can understand that--we of old Rome, have been used
+to him since the deluge. But a stranger is horrified at the first sight
+of him. Consuelo positively dreads to meet him in the street. She says
+that he makes her dream of all sorts of horrors."
+
+"It is quite true," said Maria Consuelo, with a slight movement of her
+beautiful shoulders. "There are people one would rather not see, merely
+because they are not good to look at. He is one of them and if I see him
+coming I turn away."
+
+"I know, I told him so to-day," continued Donna Tullia cheerfully. "We
+are old friends, but we do not often meet nowadays. Just fancy! It was
+in that little antiquary's shop in the Monte Brianzo--the first on the
+left as you go, he has good things--and I saw a bit of embroidery in the
+window that took my fancy, so I stopped the carriage and went in. Who
+should be there but Spicca, hat and all, looking like old Father Time.
+He was bargaining for something--a wretched old bit of
+brass--bargaining, my dear! For a few sous! One may be poor, but one has
+no right to be mean--I thought he would have got the miserable
+antiquary's skin."
+
+"Antiquaries can generally take care of themselves," observed Orsino
+incredulously.
+
+"Oh, I daresay--but it looks so badly, you know. That is all I mean.
+When he saw me he stopped wrangling and we talked a little, while I had
+the embroidery wrapped up. I will show it to you after dinner. It is
+sixteenth century, Ugo says--a piece of a chasuble--exquisite flowers on
+claret-coloured satin, a perfect gem, so rare now that everything is
+imitated. However, that is not the point. It was Spicca. I was
+forgetting my story. He said the usual things, you know--that he had
+heard that I was very gay this year, but that it seemed to agree with
+me, and so on. And I asked him why he never came to see me, and as an
+inducement I told him of our great beauty here--that is you, Consuelo,
+so please look delighted instead of frowning--and I told him that she
+ought to hear him talk, because his face had frightened her so that she
+ran away when she saw him coming towards her in the street. You see, if
+one flatters his cleverness he does not mind being called ugly--or at
+least I thought not, until to-day. But to my consternation he seemed
+angry, and he asked me almost savagely if it were true that the
+Countess d'Aranjuez--that is what he called you, my dear--really tried
+to avoid him in the street. Then I laughed and said I was only joking,
+and he began to bargain again for the little brass frame and I went
+away. When I last heard his voice he was insisting upon seventy-five
+centimes, and the antiquary was jeering at him and asking a franc and a
+half. I wonder which got the better of the fight in the end. I will ask
+him the next time I see him."
+
+Del Ferice supported his wife with a laugh at her story, but it was not
+very genuine. He had unpleasant recollections of Spicca in earlier days,
+and his name recalled events which Ugo would willingly have forgotten.
+Orsino smiled politely, but resented the way in which Donna Tullia spoke
+of his father's old friend. As for Maria Consuelo, she was a little
+pale, and looked tired. But the countess was irrepressible, for she
+feared lest Orsino should go away and think her dull.
+
+"Of course we all really like Spicca," she said. "Every one does."
+
+"I do, for my part," said Orsino gravely. "I have a great respect for
+him, for his own sake, and he is one of my father's oldest friends."
+
+Maria Consuelo looked at him very suddenly, as though she were surprised
+by what he said. She did not remember to have heard him mention the
+melancholy old duellist. She seemed about to say something, but changed
+her mind.
+
+"Yes," said Ugo, turning the subject, "he is one of the old tribe that
+is dying out. What types there were in those days, and how those who are
+alive have changed! Do you remember, Tullia? But of course you cannot,
+my angel, it was far before your time."
+
+One of Ugo's favourite methods of pleasing his wife was to assert that
+she was too young to remember people who had indeed played a part as
+lately as after the death of her first husband. It always soothed her.
+
+"I remember them all," he continued. "Old Montevarchi, and Frangipani,
+and poor Casalverde--and a score of others."
+
+He had been on the point of mentioning old Astrardente, too, but checked
+himself.
+
+"Then there were the young ones, who are in middle age now," he went on,
+"such as Valdarno and the Montevarchi whom you know, as different from
+their former selves as you can well imagine. Society was different too."
+
+Del Ferice spoke thoughtfully and slowly, as though wishing that some
+one would interrupt him or take up the subject, for he felt that his
+wife's long story about Spicca and the antiquary had not been a success,
+and his instinct told him that Spicca had better not be mentioned again,
+since he was a friend of Orsino's and since his name seemed to exert a
+depressing influence on Maria Consuelo. Orsino came to the rescue and
+began to talk of current social topics in a way which showed that he was
+not so profoundly prejudiced by traditional ideas as Del Ferice had
+expected. The momentary chill wore off quickly enough, and when the
+dinner ended Donna Tullia was sure that it had been a success. They all
+returned to the drawing-room and then Del Ferice, without any remark,
+led Orsino away to smoke with him in a distant apartment.
+
+"We can smoke again, when we go back," he said. "My wife does not mind
+and Madame d'Aranjuez likes it. But it is an excuse to be alone together
+for a little while, and besides, my doctor makes me lie down for a
+quarter of an hour after dinner. You will excuse me?"
+
+Del Ferice extended himself upon a leathern lounge, and Orsino sat down
+in a deep easy-chair.
+
+"I was so sorry not to be able to come away with you to-day," said
+Orsino. "The truth is, Madame d'Aranjuez wanted some information and I
+was just going to explain that I would stay a little longer, when you
+asked us both to dinner. You must have thought me very forgetful."
+
+"Not at all, not at all," answered Del Ferice. "Indeed, I quite supposed
+that you were coming with me, when it struck me that this would be a
+much more pleasant place for talking. I cannot imagine why I had not
+thought of it before--but I have so many details to think of."
+
+Not much could be said for the veracity of either of the statements
+which the two men were pleased to make to each other, but Orsino had the
+small advantage of being nearer to the letter, if not to the spirit of
+the truth. Each, however, was satisfied with the other's tact.
+
+"And so, Don Orsino," continued Del Ferice after a short pause, "you
+wish to try a little operation in business. Yes. Very good. You have, as
+we said yesterday, a sum of money ample for a beginning. You have the
+necessary courage and intelligence. You need a practical assistant,
+however, and it is indispensable that the point selected for the first
+venture should be one promising speedy profit. Is that it?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Very good, very good. I think I can offer you both the land and the
+partner, and almost guarantee your success, if you will be guided by
+me."
+
+"I have come to you for advice," said Orsino. "I will follow it
+gratefully. As for the success of the undertaking, I will assume the
+responsibility."
+
+"Yes. That is better. After all, everything is uncertain in such
+matters, and you would not like to feel that you were under an
+obligation to me. On the other hand, as I told you, I am selfish and
+cautious. I would rather not appear in the transaction."
+
+If any doubt as to Del Ferice's honesty of purpose crossed Orsino's mind
+at that moment, it was fully compensated by the fact that he himself
+distinctly preferred not to be openly associated with the banker.
+
+"I quite agree with you," he said.
+
+"Very well. Now for business. Do you know that it is sometimes more
+profitable to take over a half-finished building, than to begin a new
+one? Often, I assure you, for the returns are quicker and you get a
+great deal at half price. Now, the man whom I recommend to you is a
+practical architect, and was employed by a certain baker to build a
+tenement building in one of the new quarters. The baker dies, the house
+is unfinished, the heirs wish to sell it as it is--there are at least a
+dozen of them--and meanwhile the work is stopped. My advice is this. Buy
+this house, go into partnership with the unemployed architect, agreeing
+to give him a share of the profits, finish the building and sell it as
+soon as it is habitable. In six months you will get a handsome return."
+
+"That sounds very tempting," answered Orsino, "but it would need more
+capital than I have."
+
+"Not at all, not at all. It is a mere question of taking over a mortgage
+and paying stamp duty."
+
+"And how about the difference in ready money, which ought to go to the
+present owners?"
+
+"I see that you are already beginning to understand the principles of
+business," said Del Ferice, with an encouraging smile. "But in this case
+the owners are glad to get rid of the house on any terms by which they
+lose nothing, for they are in mortal fear of being ruined by it, as they
+probably will be if they hold on to it."
+
+"Then why should I not lose, if I take it?"
+
+"That is just the difference. The heirs are a number of incapable
+persons of the lower class, who do not understand these matters. If they
+attempted to go on they would soon find themselves entangled in the
+greatest difficulties. They would sink where you will almost certainly
+swim."
+
+Orsino was silent for a moment. There was something despicable, to his
+thinking, in profiting by the loss of a wretched baker's heirs.
+
+"It seems to me," he said presently, "that if I succeed in this, I ought
+to give a share of the profits to the present owners."
+
+Not a muscle of Del Ferice's face moved, but his dull eyes looked
+curiously at Orsino's young face.
+
+"That sort of thing is not commonly done in business," he said quietly,
+after a short pause. "As a rule, men who busy themselves with affairs do
+so in the hope of growing rich, but I can quite understand that where
+business is a mere pastime, as it is to be in your case, a man of
+generous instincts may devote the proceeds to charity."
+
+"It looks more like justice than charity to me," observed Orsino.
+
+"Call it what you will, but succeed first and consider the uses of your
+success afterwards. That is not my affair. The baker's heirs are not
+especially deserving people, I believe. In fact they are said to have
+hastened his death in the hope of inheriting his wealth and are
+disappointed to find that they have got nothing. If you wish to be
+philanthropic you might wait until you have cleared a large sum and then
+give it to a school or a hospital."
+
+"That is true," said Orsino. "In the meantime it is important to begin."
+
+"We can begin to-morrow, if you please. You will find me at the bank at
+mid-day. I will send for the architect and the notary and we can manage
+everything in forty-eight hours. Before the week is out you can be at
+work."
+
+"So soon as that?"
+
+"Certainly. Sooner, by hurrying matters a little."
+
+"As soon as possible then. And I will go to the bank at twelve o'clock
+to-morrow. A thousand thanks for all your good offices, my dear count."
+
+"It is a pleasure, I assure you."
+
+Orsino was so much pleased with Del Ferice's quick and business-like way
+of arranging matters that he began to look upon him as a model to
+imitate, so far as executive ability was concerned. It was odd enough
+that any one of his name should feel anything like admiration for Ugo,
+but friendship and hatred are only the opposite points at which the
+social pendulum pauses before it swings backward, and they who live long
+may see many oscillations.
+
+The two men went back to the drawing-room where Donna Tullia and Maria
+Consuelo were discussing the complicated views of the almighty
+dressmaker. Orsino knew that there was little chance of his speaking a
+word alone with Madame d'Aranjuez and resigned himself to the effort of
+helping the general conversation. Fortunately the time to be got over in
+this way was not long, as all four had engagements in the evening. Maria
+Consuelo rose at half-past ten, but Orsino determined to wait five
+minutes longer, or at least to make a show of meaning to do so. But
+Donna Tullia put out her hand as though she expected him to take his
+leave at the same time. She was going to a ball and wanted at least an
+hour in which to screw her magnificence up to the dancing pitch.
+
+The consequence was that Orsino found himself helping Maria Consuelo
+into the modest hired conveyance which awaited her at the gate. He hoped
+that she would offer him a seat for a short distance, but he was
+disappointed.
+
+"May I come to-morrow?" he asked, as he closed the door of the carriage.
+The night was not cold and the window was down.
+
+"Please tell the coachman to take me to the Via Nazionale," she said
+quickly.
+
+"What number?"
+
+"Never mind--he knows--I have forgotten. Good-night."
+
+She tried to draw up the window, but Orsino held his hand on it.
+
+"May I come to-morrow?" he asked again.
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you angry with me still?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then why--"
+
+"Let me shut the window. Take your hand away."
+
+Her voice was very imperative in the dark. Orsino relinquished his hold
+on the frame, and the pane ran up suddenly into its place with a
+rattling noise. There was obviously nothing more to be said.
+
+"Via Nazionale. The Signora says you know the house," he called to the
+driver.
+
+The man looked surprised, shrugged his shoulders after the manner of
+livery stable coachmen and drove slowly off in the direction indicated.
+Orsino stood looking after the carriage and a few seconds later he saw
+that the man drew rein and bent down to the front window as though
+asking for orders. Orsino thought he heard Maria Consuelo's voice,
+answering the question, but he could not distinguish what she said, and
+the brougham drove on at once without taking a new direction.
+
+He was curious to know whither she was going, and the idea of following
+her suggested itself but he instantly dismissed it, partly because it
+seemed unworthy and partly, perhaps, because he was on foot, and no cab
+was passing within hail.
+
+Orsino was very much puzzled. During the dinner she had behaved with her
+usual cordiality but as soon as they were alone she spoke and acted as
+she had done in the afternoon. Orsino turned away and walked across the
+deserted square. He was greatly disturbed, for he felt a sense of
+humiliation and disappointment quite new to him. Young as he was, he had
+been accustomed already to a degree of consideration very different from
+that which Maria Consuelo thought fit to bestow, and it was certainly
+the first time in his life that a door--even the door of a carriage--had
+been shut in his face without ceremony. What would have been an
+unpardonable insult, coming from a man, was at least an indignity when
+it came from a woman. As Orsino walked along, his wrath rose, and he
+wondered why he had not been angry at once.
+
+"Very well," he said to himself. "She says she does not want me. I will
+take her at her word and I will not go to see her any more. We shall see
+what happens. She will find out that I am not a child, as she was good
+enough to call me to-day, and that I am not in the habit of having
+windows put up in my face. I have much more serious business on hand
+than making love to Madame d'Aranjuez."
+
+The more he reflected upon the situation, the more angry he grew, and
+when he reached the door of the club he was in a humour to quarrel with
+everything and everybody. Fortunately, at that early hour, the place was
+in the sole possession of half a dozen old gentlemen whose conversation
+diverted his thoughts though it was the very reverse of edifying.
+Between the stories they told and the considerable number of cigarettes
+he smoked while listening to them he was almost restored to his normal
+frame of mind by midnight, when four or five of his usual companions
+straggled in and proposed baccarat. After his recent successes he could
+not well refuse to play, so he sat down rather reluctantly with the
+rest. Oddly enough he did not lose, though he won but little.
+
+"Lucky at play, unlucky in love," laughed one of the men carelessly.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Orsino, turning sharply upon the speaker.
+
+"Mean? Nothing," answered the latter in great surprise. "What is the
+matter with you, Orsino? Cannot one quote a common proverb?"
+
+"Oh--if you meant nothing, let us go on," Orsino answered gloomily.
+
+As he took up the cards again, he heard a sigh behind him and turning
+round saw that Spicca was standing at his shoulder. He was shocked by
+the melancholy count's face, though he was used to meeting him almost
+every day. The haggard and cadaverous features, the sunken and careworn
+eyes, contrasted almost horribly with the freshness and gaiety of
+Orsino's companions, and the brilliant light in the room threw the
+man's deadly pallor into strong relief.
+
+"Will you play, Count?" asked Orsino, making room for him.
+
+"Thanks--no. I never play nowadays," answered Spicca quietly.
+
+He turned and left the room. With all his apparent weakness his step was
+not unsteady, though it was slower than in the old days.
+
+"He sighed in that way because we did not quarrel," said the man whose
+quoted proverb had annoyed Orsino.
+
+"I am ready and anxious to quarrel with everybody to-night," answered
+Orsino. "Let us play baccarat--that is much better."
+
+Spicca left the club alone and walked slowly homewards to his small
+lodging in the Via della Croce. A few dying embers smouldered in the
+little fireplace which warmed his sitting-room. He stirred them slowly,
+took a stick of wood from the wicker basket, hesitated a moment, and
+then put it back again instead of burning it. The night was not cold and
+wood was very dear. He sat down under the light of the old lamp which
+stood upon the mantelpiece, and drew a long breath. But presently,
+putting his hand into the pocket of his overcoat in search of his
+cigarette case, he drew out something else which he had almost
+forgotten, a small something wrapped in coarse paper. He undid it and
+looked at the little frame of chiselled brass which Donna Tullia had
+found him buying in the afternoon, turning it over and over, absently,
+as though thinking of something else.
+
+Then he fumbled in his pockets again and found a photograph which he had
+also bought in the course of the day--the photograph of Gouache's latest
+portrait, obtained in a contraband fashion and with some difficulty from
+the photographer.
+
+Without hesitation Spicca took a pocket-knife and began to cut the head
+out, with that extraordinary neatness and precision which characterised
+him when he used any sharp instrument. The head just fitted the frame.
+He fastened it in with drops of sealing-wax and carefully burned the
+rest of the picture in the embers.
+
+The face of Maria Consuelo smiled at him in the lamplight, as he turned
+it in different ways so as to find the best aspect of it. Then he hung
+it on a nail above the mantelpiece just under a pair of crossed foils.
+
+"That man Gouache is a very clever fellow," he said aloud. "Between
+them, he and nature have made a good likeness."
+
+He sat down again and it was a long time before he made up his mind to
+take away the lamp and go to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+Del Ferice kept his word and arranged matters for Orsino with a speed
+and skill which excited the latter's admiration. The affair was not
+indeed very complicated though it involved a deed of sale, the transfer
+of a mortgage and a deed of partnership between Orsino Saracinesca and
+Andrea Contini, architect, under the style "Andrea Contini and Company,"
+besides a contract between this firm of the one party and the bank in
+which Del Ferice was a director, of the other, the partners agreeing to
+continue the building of the half-finished house, and the bank binding
+itself to advance small sums up to a certain amount for current expenses
+of material and workmen's wages. Orsino signed everything required of
+him after reading the documents, and Andrea Contini followed his
+example.
+
+The architect was a tall man with bright brown eyes, a dark and somewhat
+ragged beard, close cropped hair, a prominent, bony forehead and large,
+coarsely shaped, thin ears oddly set upon his head. He habitually wore a
+dark overcoat, of which the collar was generally turned up on one side
+and not on the other. Judging from the appearance of his strong shoes he
+had always been walking a long distance over bad roads, and when it had
+rained within the week his trousers were generally bespattered with mud
+to a considerable height above the heel. He habitually carried an
+extinguished cigar between his teeth of which he chewed the thin black
+end uneasily. Orsino fancied that he might be about eight and twenty
+years old, and was not altogether displeased with his appearance. He was
+not at all like the majority of his kind, who, in Rome at least, usually
+affect a scrupulous dandyism of attire and an uncommon refinement of
+manner. Whatever Contini's faults might prove to be, Orsino did not
+believe that they would turn out to be those of idleness or vanity. How
+far he was right in his judgment will appear before long, but he
+conceived his partner to be gifted, frank, enthusiastic and careless of
+outward forms.
+
+As for the architect himself, he surveyed Orsino with a sort of
+sympathetic curiosity which the latter would have thought unpleasantly
+familiar if he had understood it. Contini had never spoken before with
+any more exalted personage than Del Ferice, and he studied the young
+aristocrat as though he were a being from another world. He hesitated
+some time as to the proper mode of addressing him and at last decided to
+call him "Signor Principe." Orsino seemed quite satisfied with this, and
+the architect was inwardly pleased when the young man said "Signor
+Contini" instead of Contini alone. It was quite clear that Del Ferice
+had already acquainted him with all the details of the situation, for he
+seemed to understand all the documents at a glance, picking out and
+examining the important clauses with unfailing acuteness, and pointing
+with his finger to the place where Orsino was to sign his name.
+
+At the end of the interview Orsino shook hands with Del Ferice and
+thanked him warmly for his kindness, after which, he and his partner
+went out together. They stood side by side upon the pavement for a few
+seconds, each wondering what the other was going to say.
+
+"Perhaps we had better go and look at the house, Signor Principe,"
+observed Contini, in the midst of an ineffectual effort to light the
+stump of his cigar.
+
+"I think so, too," answered Orsino, realising that since he had acquired
+the property it would be as well to know how it looked. "You see I have
+trusted my adviser entirely in the matter, and I am ashamed to say I do
+not know where the house is."
+
+Andrea Contini looked at him curiously.
+
+"This is the first time that you have had anything to do with business
+of this kind, Signor Principe," he observed. "You have fallen into good
+hands."
+
+"Yours?" inquired Orsino, a little stiffly.
+
+"No. I mean that Count Del Ferice is a good adviser in this matter."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"I am sure of it," said Contini with conviction. "It would be a great
+surprise to me if we failed to make a handsome profit by this contract."
+
+"There is luck and ill-luck in everything," answered Orsino, signalling
+to a passing cab.
+
+The two men exchanged few words as they drove up to the new quarter in
+the direction indicated to the driver by Contini. The cab entered a sort
+of broad lane, the sketch of a future street, rough with the unrolled
+metalling of broken stones, the space set apart for the pavement being
+an uneven path of trodden brown earth. Here and there tall detached
+houses rose out of the wilderness, mostly covered by scaffoldings and
+swarming with workmen, but hideous where so far finished as to be
+visible in all the isolation of their six-storied nakedness. A strong
+smell of lime, wet earth and damp masonry was blown into Orsino's
+nostrils by the scirocco wind. Contini stopped the cab before an
+unpromising and deserted erection of poles, boards and tattered
+matting.
+
+"This is our house," he said, getting out and immediately making another
+attempt to light his cigar.
+
+"May I offer you a cigarette?" asked Orsino, holding out his case.
+
+Contini touched his hat, bowed a little awkwardly and took one of the
+cigarettes, which he immediately transferred to his coat pocket.
+
+"If you will allow me I will smoke it by and by," he said. "I have not
+finished my cigar."
+
+Orsino stood on the slippery ground beside the stones and contemplated
+his purchase. All at once his heart sank and he felt a profound disgust
+for everything within the range of his vision. He was suddenly aware of
+his own total and hopeless ignorance of everything connected with
+building, theoretical or practical. The sight of the stiff, angular
+scaffoldings, draped with torn straw mattings that flapped fantastically
+in the south-east wind, the apparent absence of anything like a real
+house behind them, the blades of grass sprouting abundantly about the
+foot of each pole and covering the heaps of brown pozzolana earth
+prepared for making mortar, even the detail of a broken wooden hod
+before the boarded entrance--all these things contributed at once to
+increase his dismay and to fill him with a bitter sense of inevitable
+failure. He found nothing to say, as he stood with his hands in his
+pockets staring at the general desolation, but he understood for the
+first time why women cry for disappointment. And moreover, this
+desolation was his own peculiar property, by deed of purchase, and he
+could not get rid of it.
+
+Meanwhile Andrea Contini stood beside him, examining the scaffoldings
+with his bright brown eyes, in no way disconcerted by the prospect.
+
+"Shall we go in?" he asked at last.
+
+"Do unfinished houses always look like this?" inquired Orsino, in a
+hopeless tone, without noticing his companion's proposition.
+
+"Not always," answered Contini cheerfully. "It depends upon the amount
+of work that has been done, and upon other things. Sometimes the
+foundations sink and the buildings collapse."
+
+"Are you sure nothing of the kind has happened here?" asked Orsino with
+increasing anxiety.
+
+"I have been several times to look at it since the baker died and I have
+not noticed any cracks yet," answered the architect, whose coolness
+seemed almost exasperating.
+
+"I suppose you understand these things, Signor Contini?"
+
+Contini laughed, and felt in his pockets for a crumpled paper box of
+wax-lights.
+
+"It is my profession," he answered. "And then, I built this house from
+the foundations. If you will come in, Signor Principe, I will show you
+how solidly the work is done."
+
+He took a key from his pocket and thrust it into a hole in the boarding,
+which latter proved to be a rough door and opened noisily upon rusty
+hinges. Orsino followed him in silence. To the young man's inexperienced
+eye the interior of the building was even more depressing than the
+outside. It smelt like a vault, and a dim grey light entered the square
+apertures from the curtained scaffoldings without, just sufficient to
+help one to find a way through the heaps of rubbish that covered the
+unpaved floors. Contini explained rapidly and concisely the arrangement
+of the rooms, calling one cave familiarly a dining-room and another a
+"conjugal bedroom," as he expressed it, and expatiating upon the
+facilities of communication which he himself had carefully planned.
+Orsino listened in silence and followed his guide patiently from place
+to place, in and out of dark passages and up flights of stairs as yet
+unguarded by any rail, until they emerged upon a sort of flat terrace
+intersected by low walls, which was indeed another floor and above which
+another story and a garret were yet to be built to complete the house.
+Orsino looked gloomily about him, lighted a cigarette and sat down upon
+a bit of masonry.
+
+"To me, it looks very like failure," he remarked. "But I suppose there
+is something in it."
+
+"It will not look like failure next month," said Contini carelessly.
+"Another story is soon built, and then the attic, and then, if you like,
+a Gothic roof and a turret at one corner. That always attracts buyers
+first and respectable lodgers afterwards."
+
+"Let us have a turret, by all means," answered Orsino, as though his
+tailor had proposed to put an extra button on the cuff of his coat. "But
+how in the world are you going to begin? Everything looks to me as
+though it were falling to pieces."
+
+"Leave all that to me, Signor Principe. We will begin to-morrow. I have
+a good overseer and there are plenty of workmen to be had. We have
+material for a week at least, and paid for, excepting a few cartloads of
+lime. Come again in ten days and you will see something worth looking
+at."
+
+"In ten days? And what am I to do in the meantime?" asked Orsino, who
+fancied that he had found an occupation.
+
+Andrea Contini looked at him in some surprise, not understanding in the
+least what he meant.
+
+"I mean, am I to have nothing to do with the work?" asked Orsino.
+
+"Oh--as far as that goes, you will come every day, Signor Principe, if
+it amuses you, though as you are not a practical architect, your
+assistance is not needed until questions of taste have to be considered,
+such as the Gothic roof for instance. But there are the accounts to be
+kept, of course, and there is the business with the bank from week to
+week, office work of various kinds. That becomes naturally your
+department, as the practical superintendence of the building is mine,
+but you will of course leave it to the steward of the Signor Principe di
+Sant' Ilario, who is a man of affairs."
+
+"I will do nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Orsino. "I will do it myself.
+I will learn how it is done. I want occupation."
+
+"What an extraordinary wish!" Andrea Contini opened his eyes in real
+astonishment.
+
+"Is it? You work. Why should not I?"
+
+"I must, and you need not, Signor Principe," observed the architect.
+"But if you insist, then you had better get a clerk to explain the
+details to you at first."
+
+"Do you not understand them? Can you not teach me?" asked Orsino,
+displeased with the idea of employing a third person.
+
+"Oh yes--I have been a clerk myself. I should be too much honoured
+but--the fact is, my spare time--"
+
+He hesitated and seemed reluctant to explain.
+
+"What do you do with your spare time?" asked Orsino, suspecting some
+love affair.
+
+"The fact is--I play a second violin at one of the theatres--and I give
+lessons on the mandolin, and sometimes I do copying work for my uncle
+who is a clerk in the Treasury. You see, he is old, and his eyes are not
+as good as they were."
+
+Orsino began to think that his partner was a very odd person. He could
+not help smiling at the enumeration of his architect's secondary
+occupations.
+
+"You are very fond of music, then?" he asked.
+
+"Eh--yes--as one can be, without talent--a little by necessity. To be an
+architect one must have houses to build. You see the baker died
+unexpectedly. One must live somehow."
+
+"And could you not--how shall I say? Would you not be willing to give me
+lessons in book-keeping instead of teaching some one else to play the
+mandolin?"
+
+"You would not care to learn the mandolin yourself, Signor Principe? It
+is a very pretty instrument, especially for country parties, as well as
+for serenading."
+
+Orsino laughed. He did not see himself in the character of a
+mandolinist.
+
+"I have not the slightest ear for music," he answered. "I would much
+rather learn something about business."
+
+"It is less amusing," said Andrea Contini regretfully.
+
+"But I am at your service. I will come to the office when work is over
+and we will do the accounts together. You will learn in that way very
+quickly."
+
+"Thank you. I suppose we must have an office. It is necessary, is it
+not?"
+
+"Indispensable--a room, a garret--anything. A habitation, a legal
+domicile, so to say."
+
+"Where do you live, Signor Contini? Would not your lodging do?"
+
+"I am afraid not, Signor Principe. At least not for the present. I am
+not very well lodged and the stairs are badly lighted."
+
+"Why not here, then?" asked Orsino, suddenly growing desperately
+practical, for he felt unaccountably reluctant to hire an office in the
+city.
+
+"We should pay no rent," said Contini. "It is an idea. But the walls are
+dry downstairs, and we only need a pavement, and plastering, and doors
+and windows, and papering and some furniture to make one of the rooms
+quite habitable. It is an idea, undoubtedly. Besides, it would give the
+house an air of being inhabited, which is valuable."
+
+"How long will all that take? A month or two?"
+
+"About a week. It will be a little fresh, but if you are not rheumatic,
+Signor Principe, we can try it."
+
+"I am not rheumatic," laughed Orsino, who was pleased with the idea of
+having his office on the spot, and apparently in the midst of a
+wilderness. "And I suppose you really do understand architecture, Signor
+Contini, though you do play the fiddle."
+
+In this exceedingly sketchy way was the firm of Andrea Contini and
+Company established and lodged, being at the time in a very shadowy
+state, theoretically and practically, though it was destined to play a
+more prominent part in affairs than either of the young partners
+anticipated. Orsino discovered before long that his partner was a man of
+skill and energy, and his spirits rose by degrees as the work began to
+advance. Contini was restless, untiring and gifted, such a character as
+Orsino had not yet met in his limited experience of the world. The man
+seemed to understand his business to the smallest details and could show
+the workmen how to mix mortar in the right proportions, or how to
+strengthen a scaffolding at the weak point much better than the overseer
+or the master builder. At the books he seemed to be infallible, and he
+possessed, moreover, such a power of stating things clearly and neatly
+that Orsino actually learnt from him in a few weeks what he would have
+needed six months to learn anywhere else. As soon as the first dread of
+failure wore off, Orsino discovered that he was happier than he had ever
+been in the course of his life before. What he did was not, indeed, of
+much use in the progress of the office work and rather hindered than
+helped Contini, who was obliged to do everything slowly and sometimes
+twice over in order to make his pupil understand; but Orsino had a clear
+and practical mind, and did not forget what he had learned once. An odd
+sort of friendship sprang up between the two men, who under ordinary
+circumstances would never have met, or known each other by sight. The
+one had expected to find in his partner an overbearing, ignorant
+patrician; the other had supposed that his companion would turn out a
+vulgar, sordid, half-educated builder. Both were equally surprised when
+each discovered the truth about the other.
+
+Though Orsino was reticent by nature, he took no especial pains to
+conceal his goings and comings, but as his occupation took him out of
+the ordinary beat followed by his idle friends, it was a long time
+before any of them discovered that he was engaged in practical business.
+In his own home he was not questioned, and he said nothing. The
+Saracinesca were considered eccentric, but no one interfered with them
+nor ventured to offer them suggestions. If they chose to allow their
+heir absolute liberty of action, merely because he had passed his
+twenty-first birthday, it was their own concern, and his ruin would be
+upon their own heads. No one cared to risk a savage retort from the aged
+prince, or a cutting answer from Sant' Ilario for the questionable
+satisfaction of telling either that Orsino was going to the bad. The
+only person who really knew what Orsino was about, and who could have
+claimed the right to speak to his family of his doings was San Giacinto,
+and he held his peace, having plenty of important affairs of his own to
+occupy him and being blessed with an especial gift for leaving other
+people to themselves.
+
+Sant' Ilario never spied upon his son, as many of his contemporaries
+would have done in his place. He preferred to trust him to his own
+devices so long as these led to no great mischief. He saw that Orsino
+was less restless than formerly, that he was less at the club, and that
+he was stirring earlier in the morning than had been his wont, and he
+was well satisfied.
+
+It was not to be expected, however, that Orsino should take Maria
+Consuelo literally at her word, and cease from visiting her all at once.
+If not really in love with her, he was at least so much interested in
+her that he sorely missed the daily half hour or more which he had been
+used to spend in her society.
+
+Three several times he went to her hotel at the accustomed hour, and
+each time he was told by the porter that she was at home; but on each
+occasion, also, when he sent up his card, the hotel servant returned
+with a message from the maid to the effect that Madame d'Aranjuez was
+tired and did not receive. Orsino's pride rebelled equally against
+making a further attempt and against writing a letter requesting an
+explanation. Once only, when he was walking alone she passed him in a
+carriage, and she acknowledged his bow quietly and naturally, as though
+nothing had happened. He fancied she was paler than usual, and that
+there were shadows under her eyes which he had not formerly noticed.
+Possibly, he thought, she was really not in good health, and the excuses
+made through her maid were not wholly invented. He was conscious that
+his heart beat a little faster as he watched the back of the brougham
+disappearing in the distance, but he did not feel an irresistible
+longing to make another and more serious attempt to see her. He tried to
+analyse his own sensations, and it seemed to him that he rather dreaded
+a meeting than desired it, and that he felt a certain humiliation for
+which he could not account. In the midst of his analysis, his cigarette
+went out and he sighed. He was startled by such an expression of
+feeling, and tried to remember whether he had ever sighed before in his
+life, but if he had, he could not recall the circumstances. He tried to
+console himself with the absurd supposition that he was sleepy and that
+the long-drawn breath had been only a suppressed yawn. Then he walked
+on, gazing before him into the purple haze that filled the deep street
+just as the sun was setting, and a vague sadness and longing touched him
+which had no place in his catalogue of permissible emotions and which
+were as far removed from the cold cynicism which he admired in others
+and affected in himself as they were beyond the sphere of his analysis.
+
+There is an age, not always to be fixed exactly, at which the really
+masculine nature craves the society of womankind, in one shape or
+another, as a necessity of existence, and by the society of womankind no
+one means merely the daily and hourly social intercourse which consists
+in exchanging the same set of remarks half a dozen times a day with as
+many beings of gentle sex who, to the careless eye of ordinary man,
+differ from each other in dress rather than in face or thought. There
+are eminently manly men, that is to say men fearless, strong, honourable
+and active, to whom the common five o'clock tea presents as much
+distraction and offers as much womanly sympathy as they need; who choose
+their intimate friends among men, rather than among women, and who die
+at an advanced age without ever having been more than comfortably in
+love--and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. The masculine man may be as
+brave, as strong and as scrupulously just in all his dealings, but on
+the other hand he may be weak, cowardly and a cheat, and he is apt to
+inherit the portion of sinners, whatever his moral characteristics may
+be, good or bad.
+
+Orsino was certainly not unmanly, but he was also eminently masculine
+and he began to suffer from the loss of Maria Consuelo's conversation in
+a way that surprised himself. His acquaintance with her, to give it a
+mild name, had been the first of the kind which he had enjoyed, and it
+contrasted too strongly with the crude experiences of his untried youth
+not to be highly valued by him and deeply regretted. He might pretend to
+laugh at it, and repeat to himself that his Egeria had been but a very
+superficial person, fervent in the reading of the daily novel and
+possibly not even worldly wise; he did not miss her any the less for
+that. A little sympathy and much patience in listening will go far to
+make a woman of small gifts indispensable even to a man of superior
+talent, especially when he thinks himself misunderstood in his ordinary
+surroundings. The sympathy passes for intelligence and the patience for
+assent and encouragement--a touch of the hand, and there is friendship,
+a tear, a sigh, and devotion stands upon the stage, bearing in her arms
+an infant love who learns to walk his part at the first suspicion of a
+kiss.
+
+Orsino did not imagine that he had exhausted the world's capabilities of
+happiness. The age of Byronism, as it used to be called, is over.
+Possibly tragedies are more real and frequent in our day than when the
+century was young; at all events those which take place seem to draw a
+new element of horror from those undefinable, mechanical, prosaic,
+psuedo-scientific conditions which make our lives so different from
+those of our fathers. Everything is terribly sudden nowadays, and
+alarmingly quick. Lovers make love across Europe by telegraph, and
+poetic justice arrives in less than forty-eight hours by the Oriental
+Express. Divorce is our weapon of precision, and every pack of cards at
+the gaming table can distil a poison more destructive than that of the
+Borgia. The unities of time and place are preserved by wire and rail in
+a way which would have delighted the hearts of the old French tragics.
+Perhaps men seek dramatic situations in their own lives less readily
+since they have found out means of making the concluding act more swift,
+sudden and inevitable. At all events we all like tragedy less and comedy
+more than our fathers did, which, I think, shows that we are sadder and
+possibly wiser men than they.
+
+However this may be, Orsino was no more inclined to fancy himself
+unhappy than any of his familiar companions, though he was quite willing
+to believe that he understood most of life's problems, and especially
+the heart of woman. He continued to go into the world, for it was new to
+him and if he did not find exactly the sort of sympathy he secretly
+craved, he found at least a great deal of consideration, some flattery
+and a certain amount of amusement. But when he was not actually being
+amused, or really engaged in the work which he had undertaken with so
+much enthusiasm, he felt lonely and missed Maria Consuelo more than
+ever. By this time she had taken a position in society from which there
+could be no drawing back, and he gave up for ever the hope of seeing her
+in his own circle. She seemed to avoid even the grey houses where they
+might have met on neutral ground, and Orsino saw that his only chance of
+finding her in the world lay in going frequently and openly to Del
+Ferice's house. He had called on Donna Tullia after the dinner, of
+course, but he was not prepared to do more, and Del Ferice did not seem
+to expect it.
+
+Three or four weeks after he had entered into partnership with Andrea
+Contini, Orsino found himself alone with his mother in the evening.
+Corona was seated near the fire in her favourite boudoir, with a book in
+her hand, and Orsino stood warming himself on one side of the
+chimney-piece, staring into the flames and occasionally glancing at his
+mother's calm, dark face. He was debating whether he should stay at home
+or not.
+
+Corona became conscious that he looked at her from time to time and
+dropped her novel upon her knee.
+
+"Are you going out, Orsino?" she asked.
+
+"I hardly know," he answered. "There is nothing particular to do, and it
+is too late for the theatre."
+
+"Then stay with me. Let us talk." She looked at him affectionately and
+pointed to a low chair near her.
+
+He drew it up until he could see her face as she spoke, and then sat
+down.
+
+"What shall we talk about, mother?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"About yourself, if you like, my dear. That is, if you have anything
+that you know I would like to hear. I am not curious, am I, Orsino? I
+never ask you questions about yourself."
+
+"No, indeed. You never tease me with questions--nor does my father
+either, for that matter. Would you really like to know what I am doing?"
+
+"If you will tell me."
+
+"I am building a house," said Orsino, looking at her to see the effect
+of the announcement.
+
+"A house?" repeated Corona in surprise. "Where? Does your father know
+about it?"
+
+"He said he did not care what I did." Orsino spoke rather bitterly.
+
+"That does not sound like him, my dear. Tell me all about it. Have you
+quarrelled with him, or had words together?"
+
+Orsino told his story quickly, concisely and with a frankness he would
+perhaps not have shown to any one else in the world, for he did not even
+conceal his connection with Del Ferice. Corona listened intently, and
+her deep eyes told him plainly enough that she was interested. On his
+part he found an unexpected pleasure in telling her the tale, and he
+wondered why it had never struck him that his mother might sympathise
+with his plans and aspirations. When he had finished, he waited for her
+first word almost as anxiously as he would have waited for an expression
+of opinion from Maria Consuelo.
+
+Corona did not speak at once. She looked into his eyes, smiled, patted
+his lean brown hand lovingly and smiled again before she spoke.
+
+"I like it," she said at last. "I like you to be independent and
+determined. You might perhaps have chosen a better man than Del Ferice
+for your adviser. He did something once--well, never mind! It was long
+ago and it did us no harm."
+
+"What did he do, mother? I know my father wounded him in a duel before
+you were married--"
+
+"It was not that. I would rather not tell you about it--it can do no
+good, and after all, it has nothing to do with the present affair. He
+would not be so foolish as to do you an injury now. I know him very
+well. He is far too clever for that."
+
+"He is certainly clever," said Orsino. He knew that it would be quite
+useless to question his mother further after what she had said. "I am
+glad that you do not think I have made a mistake in going into this
+business."
+
+"No. I do not think you have made a mistake, and I do not believe that
+your father will think so either when he knows all about it."
+
+"He need not have been so icily discouraging," observed Orsino.
+
+"He is a man, my dear, and I am a woman. That is the difference. Was San
+Giacinto more encouraging than he? No. They think alike, and San
+Giacinto has an immense experience besides. And yet they are both wrong.
+You may succeed, or you may fail--I hope you will succeed--but I do not
+care much for the result. It is the principle I like, the idea, the
+independence of the thing. As I grow old, I think more than I used to do
+when I was young."
+
+"How can you talk of growing old!" exclaimed Orsino indignantly.
+
+"I think more," said Corona again, not heeding him. "One of my thoughts
+is that our old restricted life was a mistake for us, and that to keep
+it up would be a sin for you. The world used to stand still in those
+days, and we stood at the head of it, or thought we did. But it is
+moving now and you must move with it or you will not only have to give
+up your place, but you will be left behind altogether."
+
+"I had no idea that you were so modern, dearest mother," laughed Orsino.
+He felt suddenly very happy and in the best of humours with himself.
+
+"Modern--no, I do not think that either your father or I could ever be
+that. If you had lived our lives you would see how impossible it is. The
+most I can hope to do is to understand you and your brothers as you grow
+up to be men. But I hate interference and I hate curiosity--the one
+breeds opposition and the other dishonesty--and if the other boys turn
+out to be as reticent as you, Orsino, I shall not always know when they
+want me. You do not realise how much you have been away from me since
+you were a boy, nor how silent you have grown when you are at home."
+
+"Am I, mother? I never meant to be."
+
+"I know it, dear, and I do not want you to be always confiding in me. It
+is not a good thing for a young man. You are strong and the more you
+rely upon yourself, the stronger you will grow. But when you want
+sympathy, if you ever do, remember that I have my whole heart full of it
+for you. For that, at least, come to me. No one can give you what I can
+give you, dear son."
+
+Orsino was touched and pressed her hand, kissing it more than once. He
+did not know whether in her last words she had meant any allusion to
+Maria Consuelo, or whether, indeed, she had been aware of his intimacy
+with the latter. But he did not ask the question of her nor of himself.
+For the moment he felt that a want in his nature had been satisfied, and
+he wondered again why he had never thought of confiding in his mother.
+
+They talked of his plans until it was late, and from that time they were
+more often together than before, each growing daily more proud of the
+other, though perhaps Orsino had better reasons for his pride than
+Corona could have found, for the love of mother for son is more
+comprehensive and not less blind than the passion of woman for man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The short Roman season was advancing rapidly to its premature fall,
+which is on Ash Wednesday, after which it struggles to hold up its head
+against the overwhelming odds of a severely observed Lent, to revive
+only spasmodically after Easter and to die a natural death on the first
+warm day. In that year, too, the fatal day fell on the fifteenth of
+February, and progressive spirits talked of the possibility of fixing
+the movable Feasts and Fasts of the Church in a more convenient part of
+the calendar. Easter might be made to fall in June, for instance, and
+society need not be informed of its inevitable and impending return to
+dust and ashes until it had enjoyed a good three months, or even four,
+of what an eminent American defines as "brass, sass, lies and sin."
+
+Rome was very gay that year, to compensate for the shortness of its
+playtime. Everything was successful, and every one was rich. People
+talked of millions less soberly than they had talked of thousands a few
+years earlier, and with less respect than they mentioned hundreds twelve
+months later. Like the vanity-struck frog, the franc blew itself up to
+the bursting point, in the hope of being taken for the louis, and
+momentarily succeeded, even beyond its own expectations. No one walked,
+though horse-flesh was enormously dear and a good coachman's wages
+amounted to just twice the salary of a government clerk. Men who, six
+months earlier, had climbed ladders with loads of brick or mortar, were
+now transformed into flourishing sub-contractors, and drove about in
+smart pony-carts, looking the picture of Italian prosperity, rejoicing
+in the most flashy of ties and smoking the blackest and longest of long
+black cigars. During twenty hours out of the twenty-four the gates of
+the city roared with traffic. From all parts of the country labourers
+poured in, bundle in hand and tools on shoulder to join in the enormous
+work and earn their share of the pay that was distributed so liberally.
+A certain man who believed in himself stood up and said that Rome was
+becoming one of the greatest of cities, and he smacked his lips and said
+that he had done it, and that the Triple Alliance was a goose which
+would lay many golden eggs. The believing bulls roared everything away
+before them, opposition, objections, financial experience, and the
+vanquished bears hibernated in secret places, sucking their paws and
+wondering what, in the name of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, would happen
+next. Distinguished men wrote pamphlets in the most distinguished
+language to prove that wealth was a baby capable of being hatched
+artificially and brought up by hand. Every unmarried swain who could
+find a bride, married her forthwith; those who could not followed the
+advice of an illustrious poet and, being over-anxious to take wives,
+took those of others. Everybody was decorated. It positively rained
+decorations and hailed grand crosses and enough commanders' ribbons were
+reeled out to have hanged half the population. The periodical attempt to
+revive the defunct carnival in the Corso was made, and the yet unburied
+corpse of ancient gaiety was taken out and painted, and gorgeously
+arrayed, and propped up in its seat to be a posthumous terror to its
+enemies, like the dead Cid. Society danced frantically and did all those
+things which it ought not to have done--and added a few more,
+unconsciously imitating Pico della Mirandola.
+
+Even those comparatively few families who, like the Saracinesca, had
+scornfully declined to dabble in the whirlpool of affairs, did not by
+any means refuse to dance to the music of success which filled the city
+with, such enchanting strains. The Princess Befana rose from her
+deathbed with more than usual vivacity and went to the length of opening
+her palace on two evenings in two successive weeks, to the intense
+delight of her gay and youthful heirs, who earnestly hoped that the
+excitement might kill her at last, and kill her beyond resurrection this
+time. But they were disappointed. She still dies periodically in winter
+and blooms out again in spring with the poppies, affording a perpetual
+and edifying illustration of the changes of the year, or, as some say,
+of the doctrine of immortality. On one of those memorable occasions she
+walked through a quadrille with the aged Prince Saracinesca, whereupon
+Sant' Ilario slipped his arm round Corona's waist and waltzed with her
+down the whole length of the ballroom and back again amidst the applause
+of his contemporaries and their children. If Orsino had had a wife he
+would have followed their example. As it was, he looked rather gloomily
+in the direction of a silent and high-born damsel with whom he was
+condemned to dance the cotillon at a later hour.
+
+So all went gaily on until Ash Wednesday extinguished the social flame,
+suddenly and beyond relighting. And still Orsino did not meet Maria
+Consuelo, and still he hesitated to make another attempt to find her at
+home. He began to wonder whether he should ever see her again, and as
+the days went by he almost wished that Donna Tullia would send him a
+card for her lenten evenings, at which Maria Consuelo regularly assisted
+as he learned from the papers. After that first invitation to dinner, he
+had expected that Del Ferice's wife would make an attempt to draw him
+into her circle; and, indeed, she would probably have done so had she
+followed her own instinct instead of submitting to the higher policy
+dictated by her husband. Orsino waited in vain, not knowing whether to
+be annoyed at the lack of consideration bestowed upon him, or to admire
+the tact which assumed that he would never wish to enter the Del Ferice
+circle.
+
+It is presumably clear that Orsino was not in love with Madame
+d'Aranjuez, and he himself appreciated the fact with a sense of
+disappointment. He was amazed at his own coldness and at the
+indifference with which he had submitted to what amounted to a most
+abrupt dismissal. He even went so far as to believe that Maria Consuelo
+had repulsed him designedly in the hope of kindling a more sincere
+passion. In that case she had been egregiously mistaken, he thought. He
+felt a curiosity to see her again before she left Rome, but it was
+nothing more than that. A new and absorbing interest had taken
+possession of him which at first left little room in his nature for
+anything else. His days were spent in the laborious study of figures and
+plans, broken only by occasional short but amusing conversations with
+Andrea Contini. His evenings were generally passed among a set of people
+who did not know Maria Consuelo except by sight and who had long ceased
+to ask him questions about her. Of late, too, he had missed his daily
+visits to her less and less, until he hardly regretted them at all, nor
+so much as thought of the possibility of renewing them. He laughed at
+the idea that his mother should have taken the place of a woman whom he
+had begun to love, and yet he was conscious that it was so, though he
+asked himself how long such a condition of things could last. Corona was
+far too wise to discuss his affairs with his father. He was too like
+herself for her to misunderstand him, and if she regarded the whole
+matter as perfectly harmless and as a legitimate subject for general
+conversation, she yet understood perfectly that having been once
+rebuffed by Sant' Ilario, Orsino must wish to be fully successful in his
+attempt before mentioning it again to the latter. And she felt so
+strongly in sympathy with her son that his work gradually acquired an
+intense interest for her, and she would have sacrificed much rather
+than see it fail. She did not on that account blame Giovanni for his
+discouraging view when Orsino had consulted him. Giovanni was the
+passion of her life and was not fallible in his impulses, though his
+judgment might sometimes be at fault in technical matters for which he
+cared nothing. But her love for her son was as great and sincere in its
+own way, and her pride in him was such as to make his success a
+condition of her future happiness.
+
+One of the greatest novelists of this age begins one of his greatest
+novels with the remark that "all happy families resemble each other, but
+that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own especial way."
+Generalities are dangerous in proportion as they are witty or striking,
+or both, and it may be asked whether the great Tolstoi has not fallen a
+victim to his own extraordinary power of striking and witty
+generalisations. Does the greatest of all his generalisations, the wide
+disclaimer of his early opinions expressed in the postscript
+subsequently attached by him to his _Kreutzer Sonata_, include also the
+words I have quoted, and which were set up, so to say, as the theme of
+his _Anna Karjenina_? One may almost hope so. I am no critic, but those
+words somehow seem to me to mean that only unhappiness can be
+interesting. It is not pleasant to think of the consequences to which
+the acceptance of such a statement might lead.
+
+There are no statistics to tell us whether the majority of living men
+and women are to be considered as happy or unhappy. But it does seem
+true that whereas a single circumstance can cause very great and lasting
+unhappiness, felicity is always dependent upon more than one condition
+and often upon so many as to make the explanation of it a highly
+difficult and complicated matter.
+
+Corona had assuredly little reason to complain of her lot during the
+past twenty years, but unruffled and perfect as it had seemed to her she
+began to see that there were sources of sorrow and satisfaction before
+her which had not yet poured their bitter or sweet streams into the
+stately river of her mature life. The new interest which Orsino had
+created for her became more and more absorbing, and she watched it and
+tended it, and longed to see it grow to greater proportions. The
+situation was strange in one way at least. Orsino was working and his
+mother was helping him to work in the hope of a financial success which
+neither of them wanted or cared for. Possibly the certainty that failure
+could entail no serious consequences made the game a more amusing if a
+less exciting one to play.
+
+"If I lose," said Orsino to her, "I can only lose the few thousands I
+invested. If I win, I will give you a string of pearls as a keepsake."
+
+"If you lose, dear boy," answered Corona, "it must be because you had
+not enough to begin with. I will give you as much as you need, and we
+will try again."
+
+They laughed happily together. Whatever chanced, things must turn out
+well. Orsino worked very hard, and Corona was very rich in her own right
+and could afford to help to any extent she thought necessary. She could,
+indeed, have taken the part of the bank and advanced him all the money
+he needed, but it seemed useless to interfere with the existing
+arrangements.
+
+In Lent the house had reached an important point in its existence.
+Andrea Contini had completed the Gothic roof and the turret which
+appeared to him in the first vision of his dream, but to which the
+defunct baker had made objections on the score of expense. The masons
+were almost all gone and another set of workmen were busy with finer
+tools moulding cornices and laying on the snow-white stucco. Within, the
+joiners and carpenters kept up a ceaseless hammering.
+
+One day Andrea Contini walked into the office after a tour of
+inspection, with a whole cigar, unlighted and intact, between his teeth.
+Orsino was well aware from this circumstance that something unusually
+fortunate had happened or was about to happen, and he rose from his
+books, as soon as he recognised the fair-weather signal.
+
+"We can sell the house whenever we like," said the architect, his bright
+brown eyes sparkling with satisfaction.
+
+"Already!" exclaimed Orsino who, though equally delighted at the
+prospect of such speedy success, regretted in his heart the damp walls
+and the constant stir of work which he had learned to like so well.
+
+"Already--yes. One needs luck like ours! The count has sent a man up in
+a cab to say that an acquaintance of his will come and look at the
+building to-day between twelve and one with a view to buying. The sooner
+we look out for some fresh undertaking, the better. What do you say, Don
+Orsino?"
+
+"It is all your doing, Contini. Without you I should still be standing
+outside and watching the mattings flapping in the wind, as I did on that
+never-to-be-forgotten first day."
+
+"I conceive that a house cannot be built without an architect," answered
+Contini, laughing, "and it has always been plain to me that there can be
+no architects without houses to build. But as for any especial credit to
+me, I refute the charge indignantly. I except the matter of the turret,
+which is evidently what has attracted the buyer. I always thought it
+would. You would never have thought of a turret, would you, Don Orsino?"
+
+"Certainly not, nor of many other things," answered Orsino, laughing.
+"But I am sorry to leave the place. I have grown into liking it."
+
+"What can one do? It is the way of the world--'lieto ricordo d'un amor
+che fu,'" sang Contini in the thin but expressive falsetto which seems
+to be the natural inheritance of men who play upon stringed instruments.
+He broke off in the middle of a bar and laughed, out of sheer delight at
+his own good fortune.
+
+In due time the purchaser came, saw and actually bought. He was a
+problematic personage with a disquieting nose, who spoke few words but
+examined everything with an air of superior comprehension. He looked
+keenly at Orsino but seemed to have no idea who he was and put all his
+questions to Contini.
+
+After agreeing to the purchase he inquired whether Andrea Contini and
+Company had any other houses of the same description building and if so
+where they were situated, adding that he liked the firm's way of doing
+things. He stipulated for one or two slight improvements, made an
+appointment for a meeting with the notaries on the following day and
+went off with a rather unceremonious nod to the partners. The name he
+left was that of a well-known capitalist from the south, and Contini was
+inclined to think he had seen him before, but was not certain.
+
+Within a week the business was concluded, the buyer took over the
+mortgage as Orsino and Contini had done and paid the difference in cash
+into the bank, which deducted the amounts due on notes of hand before
+handing the remainder to the two young men. The buyer also kept back a
+small part of the purchase money to be paid on taking possession, when
+the house was to be entirely finished. Andrea Contini and Company had
+realised a considerable sum of money.
+
+"The question is, what to do next," said Orsino thoughtfully.
+
+"We had better look about us for something promising," said his partner.
+"A corner lot in this same quarter. Corner houses are more interesting
+to build and people like them to live in because they can see two or
+three ways at once. Besides, a corner is always a good place for a
+turret. Let us take a walk--smoking and strolling, we shall find
+something."
+
+"A year ago, no doubt," answered Orsino, who was becoming worldly wise.
+"A year ago that would have been well enough. But listen to me. That
+house opposite to ours has been finished some time, yet nobody has
+bought it. What is the reason?"
+
+"It faces north and not south, as ours does, and it has not a Gothic
+roof."
+
+"My dear Contini, I do not mean to say that the Gothic roof has not
+helped us very much, but it cannot have helped us alone. How about those
+two houses together at the end of the next block. Balconies, travertine
+columns, superior doors and windows, spaces for hydraulic lifts and all
+the rest of it. Yet no one buys. Dry, too, and almost ready to live in,
+and all the joinery of pitch pine. There is a reason for their ill
+luck."
+
+"What do you think it is?" asked Contini, opening his eyes.
+
+"The land on which they are built was not in the hands of Del Ferice's
+bank, and the money that built them was not advanced by Del Ferice's
+bank, and Del Ferice's bank has no interest in selling the houses
+themselves. Therefore they are not sold."
+
+"But surely there are other banks in Rome, and private individuals--"
+
+"No, I do not believe that there are," said Orsino with conviction. "My
+cousin of San Giacinto thinks that the selling days are over, and I
+fancy he is right, except about Del Ferice, who is cleverer than any of
+us. We had better not deceive ourselves, Contini. Del Ferice sold our
+house for us, and unless we keep with him we shall not sell another so
+easily. His bank has a lot of half-finished houses on its hands secured
+by mortgages which are worthless until the houses are habitable. Del
+Ferice wants us to finish those houses for him, in order to recover
+their value. If we do it, we shall make a profit. If we attempt anything
+on our own account we shall fail. Am I right or not?"
+
+"What can I say? At all events you are on the safe side. But why has not
+the count given all this work to some old established firm of his
+acquaintance?"
+
+"Because he cannot trust any one as he can trust us, and he knows it."
+
+"Of course I owe the count a great deal for his kindness in introducing
+me to you. He knew all about me before the baker died, and afterwards I
+waited for him outside the Chambers one evening and asked him if he
+could find anything for me to do, but he did not give me much
+encouragement. I saw you speak to him and get into his carriage--was it
+not you?"
+
+"Yes--it was I," answered Orsino, remembering the tall man in an
+overcoat who had disappeared in the dusk on the evening when he himself
+had first sought Del Ferice. "Yes, and you see we are both under a sort
+of obligation to him which is another reason for taking his advice."
+
+"Obligations are humiliating!" exclaimed Contini impatiently. "We have
+succeeded in increasing our capital--your capital, Don Orsino--let us
+strike out for ourselves."
+
+"I think my reasons are good," said Orsino quietly. "And as for
+obligations, let us remember that we are men of business."
+
+It appears from this that the low-born Andrea Contini and the high and
+mighty Don Orsino Saracinesca were not very far from exchanging places
+so far as prejudice was concerned. Contini noticed the fact and smiled.
+
+"After all," he said, "if you can accept the situation, I ought to
+accept it, too."
+
+"It is a matter of business," said Orsino, returning to his argument.
+"There is no such thing as obligation where money is borrowed on good
+security and a large interest is regularly paid."
+
+It was clear that Orsino was developing commercial instincts. His
+grandfather would have died of rage on the spot if he could have
+listened to the young fellow's cool utterances. But Contini was not
+pleased and would not abandon his position so easily.
+
+"It is very well for you, Don Orsino," he said, vainly attempting to
+light his cigar. "You do not need the money as I do. You take it from
+Del Ferice because it amuses you to do so, not because you are obliged
+to accept it. That is the difference. The count knows It too, and knows
+that he is not conferring a favour but receiving one. You do him an
+honour in borrowing his money. He lays me under an obligation in lending
+it."
+
+"We must get money somewhere," answered Orsino with indifference. "If
+not from Del Ferice, then from some other bank. And as for obligations,
+as you call them, he is not the bank himself, and the bank does not lend
+its money in order to amuse me or to humiliate you, my friend. But if
+you insist, I shall say that the convenience is not on one side only. If
+Del Ferice supports us it is because we serve his interests. If he has
+done us a good turn, it is a reason why we should do him one, and build
+his houses rather than those of other people. You talk about my
+conferring a favour upon him. Where will he find another Andrea Contini
+and Company to make worthless property valuable for him? In that sense
+you and I are earning his gratitude, by the simple process of being
+scrupulously honest. I do not feel in the least humiliated, I assure
+you."
+
+"I cannot help it," replied Contini, biting his cigar savagely. "I have
+a heart, and it beats with good blood. Do you know that there is blood
+of Cola di Rienzo in my veins?"
+
+"No. You never told me," answered Orsino, one of whose forefathers had
+been concerned in the murder of the tribune, a fact to which he thought
+it best not to refer at the present moment.
+
+"And the blood of Cola di Rienzo burns under the shame of an
+obligation!" cried Contini, with a heat hardly warranted by the
+circumstances. "It is humiliating, it is base, to submit to be the tool
+of a Del Ferice--we all know who and what Del Ferice was, and how he
+came by his title of count, and how he got his fortune--a spy, an
+intriguer! In a good cause? Perhaps. I was not born then, nor you
+either, Signor Principe, and we do not know what the world was like,
+when it was quite another world. That is not a reason for serving a
+spy!"
+
+"Calm yourself, my friend. We are not in Del Ferice's service."
+
+"Better to die than that! Better to kill him at once and go to the
+galleys for a few years! Better to play the fiddle, or pick rags, or beg
+in the streets than that, Signor Principe. One must respect oneself. You
+see it yourself. One must be a man, and feel as a man. One must feel
+those things here, Signor Principe, here in the heart!"
+
+Contini struck his breast with his clenched fist and bit the end of his
+cigar quite through in his anger. Then he suddenly seized his hat and
+rushed out of the room.
+
+Orsino was less surprised at the outburst than might have been expected,
+and did not attach any great weight to his partner's dramatic rage. But
+he lit a cigarette and carefully thought over the situation, trying to
+find out whether there were really any ground for Contini's first
+remarks. He was perfectly well aware that as Orsino Saracinesca he would
+cut his own throat with enthusiasm rather than borrow a louis of Ugo Del
+Ferice. But as Andrea Contini and Company he was another person, and so
+Del Ferice was not Count Del Ferice, nor the Onorevole Del Ferice, but
+simply a director in a bank with which he had business. If the interests
+of Andrea Contini and Company were identical with those of the bank,
+there was no reason whatever for interrupting relations both amicable
+and profitable, merely because one member of the firm claimed to be
+descended from Cola di Bienzo, a defunct personage in whom Orsino felt
+no interest whatever. Andrea Contini, considering his social relations,
+might be on terms of friendship with his hatter, for instance, or might
+have personal reasons for disliking him. In neither case could the
+buying of a hat from that individual be looked upon as an obligation
+conferred or received by either party. This was quite clear, and Orsino
+was satisfied.
+
+"Business is business," he said to himself, "and people who introduce
+personal considerations into a financial transaction will get the worst
+of the bargain."
+
+Andrea Contini was apparently of the same opinion, for when he entered
+the room again at the end of an hour his excitement had quite
+disappeared.
+
+"If we take another contract from the count," he said, "is there any
+reason why we should not take a larger one, if it is to be had? We could
+manage three or four buildings now that you have become such a good
+bookkeeper."
+
+"I am quite of your opinion," Orsino answered, deciding at once to make
+no reference to what had gone before.
+
+"The only question is, whether we have capital enough for a margin."
+
+"Leave that to me."
+
+Orsino determined to consult his mother, in whose judgment he felt a
+confidence which he could not explain but which was not misplaced. The
+fact was simple enough. Corona understood him thoroughly, though her
+comprehension of his business was more than limited, and she did nothing
+in reality but encourage his own sober opinion when it happened to be at
+variance with some enthusiastic inclination which momentarily deluded
+him. That quiet pushing of a man's own better reason against his half
+considered but often headstrong impulses, is after all one of the best
+and most loving services which a wise woman can render to a man whom she
+loves, be he husband, son or brother. Many women have no other secret,
+and indeed there are few more valuable ones, if well used and well kept.
+But let not graceless man discover that it is used upon him. He will
+resent being led by his own reason far more than being made the
+senseless slave of a foolish woman's wildest caprice. To select the best
+of himself for his own use is to trample upon his free will. To send him
+barefoot to Jericho in search of a dried flower is to appeal to his
+heart. Man is a reasoning animal.
+
+Corona, as was to be expected, was triumphant in Orsino's first success,
+and spent as much time in talking over the past and the future with him
+as she could command during his own hours of liberty. He needed no
+urging to continue in the same course, but he enjoyed her happiness and
+delighted in her encouragement.
+
+"Contini wishes to take a large contract," he said to her, after the
+interview last described. "I agree with him, in a way. We could
+certainly manage a larger business."
+
+"No doubt," Corona answered thoughtfully, for she saw that there was
+some objection to the scheme in his own mind.
+
+"I have learned a great deal," he continued, "and we have much more
+capital than we had. Besides, I suppose you would lend me a few
+thousands if we needed them, would you not, mother?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear. You shall not be hampered by want of money."
+
+"And then, it is possible that we might make something like a fortune in
+a short time. It would be a great satisfaction. But then, too--" He
+stopped.
+
+"What then?" asked Corona, smiling.
+
+"Things may turn out differently. Though I have been successful this
+time, I am much more inclined to believe that San Giacinto was right
+than I was before I began. All this movement does not rest on a solid
+basis."
+
+A financier of thirty years' standing could not have made the statement
+more impressively, and Orsino was conscious that he was assuming an
+elderly tone. He laughed the next moment.
+
+"That is a stock phrase, mother," he continued. "But it means something.
+Everything is not what it should be. If the demand were as great as
+people say it is, there would not be half a dozen houses--better houses
+than ours--unsold in our street. That is why I am afraid of a big
+contract. I might lose all my money and some of yours."
+
+"It would not be of much consequence if you did," answered Corona. "But
+of course you will be guided by your own judgment, which, is much
+better than mine. One must risk something, of course, but there is no
+use in going into danger."
+
+"Nevertheless, I should enjoy a big venture immensely."
+
+"There is no reason why you should not try one, when the moment comes,
+my dear. I suppose that a few months will decide whether there is to be
+a crisis or not. In the meantime you might take something moderate,
+neither so small as the last, nor so large as you would like. You will
+get more experience, risk less and be better prepared for a crash if it
+comes, or to take advantage of anything favourable if business grows
+safer."
+
+Orsino was silent for a moment.
+
+"You are very wise, mother," he said. "I will take your advice."
+
+Corona had indeed acted as wisely as she could. The only flaw in her
+reasoning was her assertion that a few months would decide the fate of
+Roman affairs. If it were possible to predict a crisis even within a few
+months, speculation would be a less precarious business than it is.
+
+Orsino and his mother might have talked longer and perhaps to better
+purpose, but they were interrupted by the entrance of a servant, bearing
+a note. Corona instinctively put out her hand to receive it.
+
+"For Don Orsino," said the man, stopping before him.
+
+Orsino took the letter, looked at it and turned it over.
+
+"I think it is from Madame d'Aranjuez," he remarked, without emotion.
+"May I read it?"
+
+"There is no answer, Eccellenza," said the servant, whose curiosity was
+satisfied.
+
+"Read it, of course," said Corona, looking at him.
+
+She was surprised that Madame d'Aranjuez should write to him, but she
+was still more astonished to see the indifference with which he opened
+the missive. She had imagined that he was more or less in love with
+Maria Consuelo.
+
+"I fancy it is the other way," she thought. "The woman wants to marry
+him. I might have suspected it."
+
+Orsino read the note, and tossed it into the fire without volunteering
+any information.
+
+"I will take your advice, mother," he said, continuing the former
+conversation, as though nothing had happened.
+
+But the subject seemed to be exhausted, and before long Orsino made an
+excuse to his mother and went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+There was nothing in the note burnt by Orsino which he might not have
+shown to his mother, since he had already told her the name of the
+writer. It contained the simple statement that Maria Consuelo was about
+to leave Rome, and expressed the hope that she might see Orsino before
+her departure as she had a small request to make of him, in the nature
+of a commission. She hoped he would forgive her for putting him to so
+much inconvenience.
+
+Though he betrayed no emotion in reading the few lines, he was in
+reality annoyed by them, and he wished that he might be prevented from
+obeying the summons. Maria Consuelo had virtually dropped the
+acquaintance, and had refused repeatedly and in a marked way to receive
+him. And now, at the last moment, when she needed something of him, she
+chose to recall him by a direct invitation. There was nothing to be done
+but to yield, and it was characteristic of Orsino that, having submitted
+to necessity, he did not put off the inevitable moment, but went to her
+at once.
+
+The days were longer now than they had been during the time when he had
+visited her every day, and the lamp was not yet on the table when Orsino
+entered the small sitting-room. Maria Consuelo was standing by the
+window, looking out into the street, and her right hand rested against
+the pane while her fingers tapped it softly but impatiently. She turned
+quickly as he entered, but the light was behind her and he could hardly
+see her face. She came towards him and held out her hand.
+
+"It is very kind of you to have come so soon," she said, as she took her
+old accustomed place by the table.
+
+Nothing was changed, excepting that the two or three new books at her
+elbow were not the same ones which had been there two months earlier. In
+one of them was thrust the silver paper-cutter with the jewelled handle,
+which Orsino had never missed. He wondered whether there were any reason
+for the unvarying sameness of these details.
+
+"Of course I came," he said. "And as there was time to-day, I came at
+once."
+
+He spoke rather coldly, still resenting her former behaviour and
+expecting that she would immediately say what she wanted of him. He
+would promise to execute the commission, whatever it might be, and after
+ten minutes of conversation he would take his leave. There was a short
+pause, during which he looked at her. She did not seem well. Her face
+was pale and her eyes were deep with shadows. Even her auburn hair had
+lost something of its gloss. Yet she did not look older than before, a
+fact which proved her to be even younger than Orsino had imagined.
+Saving the look of fatigue and suffering in her face, Maria Consuelo had
+changed less than Orsino during the winter, and she realised the fact at
+a glance. A determined purpose, hard work, the constant exertion of
+energy and will, and possibly, too, the giving up to a great extent of
+gambling and strong drinks, had told in Orsino's face and manner as a
+course of training tells upon a lazy athlete. The bold black eyes had a
+more quiet glance, the well-marked features had acquired strength and
+repose, the lean jaw was firmer and seemed more square. Even
+physically, Orsino had improved, though the change was undefinable.
+Young as he was, something of the power of mature manhood was already
+coming over his youth.
+
+"You must have thought me very--rude," said Maria Consuelo, breaking the
+silence and speaking with a slight hesitation which Orsino had never
+noticed before.
+
+"It is not for me to complain, Madame," he answered. "You had every
+right--"
+
+He stopped short, for he was reluctant to admit that she had been
+justified in her behaviour towards him.
+
+"Thanks," she said, with an attempt to laugh. "It is pleasant to find
+magnanimous people now and then. I do not want you to think that I was
+capricious. That is all."
+
+"I certainly do not think that. You were most consistent. I called three
+times and always got the same answer."
+
+He fancied that he heard her sigh, but she tried to laugh again.
+
+"I am not imaginative," she answered. "I daresay you found that out long
+go. You have much more imagination than I."
+
+"It is possible, Madame--but you have not cared to develop it."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What does it matter? Do you remember what you said when I bade you
+good-night at the window of your carriage after Del Ferice's dinner? You
+said that you were not angry with me. I was foolish enough to imagine
+that you were in earnest. I came again and again, but you would not see
+me. You did not encourage my illusion."
+
+"Because I would not receive you? How do you know what happened to me?
+How can you judge of my life? By your own? There is a vast difference."
+
+"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed Orsino almost impatiently. "I know what you are
+going to say. It will be flattering to me of course. The unattached
+young man is dangerous to the reputation. The foreign lady is travelling
+alone. There is the foundation of a vaudeville in that!"
+
+"If you must be unjust, at least do not be brutal," said Maria Consuelo
+in a low voice, and she turned her face away from him.
+
+"I am evidently placed in the world to offend you, Madame. Will you
+believe that I am sorry for it, though I only dimly comprehend my fault?
+What did I say? That you were wise in breaking off my visits, because
+you are alone here, and because I am young, unmarried and unfortunately
+a little conspicuous in my native city. Is it brutal to suggest that a
+young and beautiful woman has a right not to be compromised? Can we not
+talk freely for half an hour, as we used to talk, and then say good-bye
+and part good friends until you come to Rome again?"
+
+"I wish we could!" There was an accent of sincerity in the tone which
+pleased Orsino.
+
+"Then begin by forgiving me all my sins, and put them down to ignorance,
+want of tact, the inexperience of youth or a naturally weak
+understanding. But do not call me brutal on such slight provocation."
+
+"We shall never agree for a long time," answered Maria Consuelo
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, as I told you, there is too great a difference between our
+lives. Do not answer me as you did before, for I am right. I began by
+admitting that I was rude. If that is not enough I will say more--I will
+even ask you to forgive me--can I do more?"
+
+She spoke so earnestly that Orsino was surprised and almost touched. Her
+manner now was even less comprehensible than her repeated refusals to
+see him had been.
+
+"You have done far too much already," he said gravely. "It is mine to
+ask your forgiveness for much that I have done and said. I only wish
+that I understood you better."
+
+"I am glad you do not," replied Maria Consuelo, with a sigh which this
+time was not to be mistaken. "There is a sadness which it is better not
+to understand," she added softly.
+
+"Unless one can help to drive it away." He, too, spoke gently, his voice
+being attracted to the pitch and tone of hers.
+
+"You cannot do that--and if you could, you would not."
+
+"Who can tell?"
+
+The charm which he had formerly felt so keenly in her presence but which
+he had of late so completely forgotten, was beginning to return and he
+submitted to it with a sense of satisfaction which he had not
+anticipated. Though the twilight was coming on, his eyes had become
+accustomed to the dimness in the room and he saw every change in her
+pale, expressive face. She leaned back in her chair with eyes half
+closed.
+
+"I like to think that you would, if you knew how," she said presently.
+
+"Do you not know that I would?"
+
+She glanced quickly at him, and then, instead of answering, rose from
+her seat and called to her maid through one of the doors, telling her to
+bring the lamp. She sat down again, but being conscious that they were
+liable to interruption, neither of the two spoke. Maria Consuelo's
+fingers played with the silver knife, drawing it out of the book in
+which it lay and pushing it back again. At last she took it up and
+looked closely at the jewelled monogram on the handle.
+
+The maid entered, set the shaded lamp upon the table and glanced sharply
+at Orsino. He could not help noticing the look. In a moment she was
+gone, and the door closed behind her. Maria Consuelo looked over her
+shoulder to see that it had not been left ajar.
+
+"She is a very extraordinary person, that elderly maid of mine," she
+said.
+
+"So I should imagine from her face."
+
+"Yes. She looked at you as she passed and I saw that you noticed it. She
+is my protector. I never have travelled without her and she watches over
+me--as a cat watches a mouse."
+
+The little laugh that accompanied the words was not one of satisfaction,
+and the shade of annoyance did not escape Orsino.
+
+"I suppose she is one of those people to whose ways one submits because
+one cannot live without them," he observed.
+
+"Yes. That is it. That is exactly it," repeated Maria Consuelo. "And she
+is very strongly attached to me," she added after an instant's
+hesitation. "I do not think she will ever leave me. In fact we are
+attached to each other."
+
+She laughed again as though amused by her own way of stating the
+relation, and drew the paper-cutter through her hand two or three times.
+Orsino's eyes were oddly fascinated by the flash of the jewels.
+
+"I would like to know the history of that knife," he said, almost
+thoughtlessly.
+
+Maria Consuelo started and looked at him, paler even than before. The
+question seemed to be a very unexpected one.
+
+"Why?" she asked quickly.
+
+"I always see it on the table or in your hand," answered Orsino. "It is
+associated with you--I think of it when I think of you. I always fancy
+that it has a story."
+
+"You are right. It was given to me by a person who loved me."
+
+"I see--I was indiscreet."
+
+"No--you do not see, my friend. If you did you--you would understand
+many things, and perhaps it is better that you should not know them."
+
+"Your sadness? Should I understand that, too?"
+
+"No. Not that."
+
+A slight colour rose in her face, and she stretched out her hand to
+arrange the shade of the lamp, with a gesture long familiar to him.
+
+"We shall end by misunderstanding each other," she continued in a harder
+tone. "Perhaps it will be my fault. I wish you knew much more about me
+than you do, but without the necessity of telling you the story. But
+that is impossible. This paper-cutter--for instance, could tell the tale
+better than I, for it made people see things which I did not see."
+
+"After it was yours?"
+
+"Yes. After it was mine."
+
+"It pleases you to be very mysterious," said Orsino with a smile.
+
+"Oh no! It does not please me at all," she answered, turning her face
+away again. "And least of all with you--my friend."
+
+"Why least with me?"
+
+"Because you are the first to misunderstand. You cannot help it. I do
+not blame you."
+
+"If you would let me be your friend, as you call me, it would be better
+for us both."
+
+He spoke as he had assuredly not meant to speak when he had entered the
+room, and with a feeling that surprised himself far more than his
+hearer. Maria Consuelo turned sharply upon him.
+
+"Have you acted like a friend towards me?" she asked.
+
+"I have tried to," he answered, with more presence of mind than truth.
+
+Her tawny eyes suddenly lightened.
+
+"That is not true. Be truthful! How have you acted, how have you spoken
+with me? Are you ashamed to answer?"
+
+Orsino raised his head rather haughtily, and met her glance, wondering
+whether any man had ever been forced into such a strange position
+before. But though her eyes were bright, their look was neither cold nor
+defiant.
+
+"You know the answer," he said. "I spoke and acted as though I loved
+you, Madame, but since you dismissed me so very summarily, I do not see
+why you wish me to say so."
+
+"And you, Don Orsino, have you ever been loved--loved in earnest--by any
+woman?"
+
+"That is a very strange question, Madame."
+
+"I am discreet. You may answer it safely."
+
+"I have no doubt of that."
+
+"But you will not? No--that is your right. But it would be kind of
+you--I should be grateful if you would tell me--has any woman ever loved
+you dearly?"
+
+Orsino laughed, almost in spite of himself. He had little false pride.
+
+"It is humiliating, Madame. But since you ask the question and require a
+categorical answer, I will make my confession. I have never been loved.
+But you will observe, as an extenuating circumstance, that I am young. I
+do not give up all hope."
+
+"No--you need not," said Maria Consuelo in a low voice, and again she
+moved the shade of the lamp.
+
+Though Orsino was by no means fatuous, he must have been blind if he had
+not seen by this time that Madame d'Aranjuez was doing her best to make
+him speak as he had formerly spoken to her, and to force him into a
+declaration of love. He saw it, indeed, and wondered; but although he
+felt her charm upon him, from time to time, he resolved that nothing
+should induce him to relax even so far as he had done already more than
+once during the interview. She had placed him in a foolish position once
+before, and he would not expose himself to being made ridiculous again,
+in her eyes or his. He could not discover what intention she had in
+trying to lead him back to her, but he attributed it to her vanity. She
+regretted, perhaps, having rebuked him so soon, or perhaps she had
+imagined that he would have made further and more determined efforts to
+see her. Possibly, too, she really wished to ask a service of him, and
+wished to assure herself that she could depend upon him by previously
+extracting an avowal of his devotion. It was clear that one of the two
+had mistaken the other's character or mood, though it was impossible to
+say which was the one deceived.
+
+The silence which followed lasted some time, and threatened to become
+awkward. Maria Consuelo could not or would not speak and Orsino did not
+know what to say. He thought of inquiring what the commission might be
+with which, according to her note, she had wished to entrust him. But an
+instant's reflection told him that the question would be tactless. If
+she had invented the idea as an excuse for seeing him, to mention it
+would be to force her hand, as card-players say, and he had no intention
+of doing that. Even if she really had something to ask of him, he had no
+right to change the subject so suddenly. He bethought him of a better
+question.
+
+"You wrote me that you were going away," he said quietly. "But you will
+come back next winter, will you not, Madame?"
+
+"I do not know," she answered, vaguely. Then she started a little, as
+though understanding his words. "What am I saying!" she exclaimed. "Of
+course I shall come back."
+
+"Have you been drinking from the Trevi fountain by moonlight, like those
+mad English?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"It is not necessary. I know that I shall come back--if I am alive."
+
+"How you say that! You are as strong as I--"
+
+"Stronger, perhaps. But then--who knows! The weak ones sometimes last
+the longest."
+
+Orsino thought she was growing very sentimental, though as he looked at
+her he was struck again by the look of suffering in her eyes. Whatever
+weakness she felt was visible there, there was nothing in the full, firm
+little hand, in the strong and easy pose of the head, in the softly
+coloured ear half hidden by her hair, that could suggest a coming danger
+to her splendid health.
+
+"Let us take it for granted that you will come back to us," said Orsino
+cheerfully.
+
+"Very well, we will take it for granted. What then?"
+
+The question was so sudden and direct that Orsino fancied there ought to
+be an evident answer to it.
+
+"What then?" he repeated, after a moment's hesitation. "I suppose you
+will live in these same rooms again, and with your permission, a certain
+Orsino Saracinesca will visit you from time to time, and be rude, and be
+sent away into exile for his sins. And Madame d'Aranjuez will go a great
+deal to Madame Del Ferice's and to other ultra-White houses, which will
+prevent the said Orsino from meeting her in society. She will also be
+more beautiful than ever, and the daily papers will describe a certain
+number of gowns which she will bring with her from Paris, or Vienna, or
+London, or whatever great capital is the chosen official residence of
+her great dressmaker. And the world will not otherwise change very
+materially in the course of eight months."
+
+Orsino laughed lightly, not at his own speech, which he had constructed
+rather clumsily under the spur of necessity, but in the hope that she
+would laugh, too, and begin to talk more carelessly. But Maria Consuelo
+was evidently not inclined for anything but the most serious view of the
+world, past, present and future.
+
+"Yes," she answered gravely. "I daresay you are right. One comes, one
+shows one's clothes, and one goes away again--and that is all. It would
+be very much the same if one did not come. It is a great mistake to
+think oneself necessary to any one. Only things are necessary--food,
+money and something to talk about."
+
+"You might add friends to the list," said Orsino, who was afraid of
+being called brutal again if he did not make some mild remonstrance to
+such a sweeping assertion.
+
+"Friends are included under the head of 'something to talk about,'"
+answered Maria Consuelo.
+
+"That is an encouraging view."
+
+"Like all views one gets by experience."
+
+"You grow more and more bitter."
+
+"Does the world grow sweeter as one grows older?"
+
+"Neither you nor I have lived long enough to know," answered Orsino.
+
+"Facts make life long--not years."
+
+"So long as they leave no sign of age, what does it matter?"
+
+"I do not care for that sort of flattery."
+
+"Because it is not flattery at all. You know the truth too well. I am
+not ingenious enough to flatter you, Madame. Perfection is not flattered
+when it is called perfect."
+
+"It is at all events impossible to exaggerate better than you can,"
+answered Maria Consuelo, laughing at last at the overwhelming
+compliment. "Where did you learn that?"
+
+"At your feet, Madame. The contemplation of great masterpieces enlarges
+the intelligence and deepens the power of expression."
+
+"And I am a masterpiece--of what? Of art? Of caprice? Of consistency?"
+
+"Of nature," answered Orsino promptly.
+
+Again Maria Consuelo laughed a little, at the mere quickness of the
+answer. Orsino was delighted with himself, for he fancied he was leading
+her rapidly away from the dangerous ground upon which she had been
+trying to force him. But her next words showed him that he had not yet
+succeeded.
+
+"Who will make me laugh during all these months!" she exclaimed with a
+little sadness.
+
+Orsino thought she was strangely obstinate, and wondered what she would
+say next.
+
+"Dear me, Madame," he said, "if you are so kind as to laugh at my poor
+wit, you will not have to seek far to find some one to amuse you
+better!"
+
+He knew how to put on an expression of perfect simplicity when he
+pleased, and Maria Consuelo looked at him, trying to be sure whether he
+were in earnest or not. But his face baffled her.
+
+"You are too modest," she said.
+
+"Do you think it is a defect? Shall I cultivate a little more assurance
+of manner?" he asked, very innocently.
+
+"Not to-day. Your first attempt might lead you into extremes."
+
+"There is not the slightest fear of that, Madame," he answered with some
+emphasis.
+
+She coloured a little and her closed lips smiled in a way he had often
+noticed before. He congratulated himself upon these signs of approaching
+ill-temper, which promised an escape from his difficulty. To take leave
+of her suddenly was to abandon the field, and that he would not do. She
+had determined to force him into a confession of devotion, and he was
+equally determined not to satisfy her. He had tried to lead her off her
+track with frivolous talk and had failed. He would try and irritate her
+instead, but without incurring the charge of rudeness. Why she was
+making such an attack upon him, was beyond his understanding, but he
+resented it, and made up his mind neither to fly nor yield. If he had
+been a hundredth part as cynical as he liked to fancy himself, he would
+have acted very differently. But he was young enough to have been
+wounded by his former dismissal, though he hardly knew it, and to seek
+almost instinctively to revenge his wrongs. He did not find it easy. He
+would not have believed that such a woman as Maria Consuelo could so far
+forget her pride as to go begging for a declaration of love.
+
+"I suppose you will take Gouache's portrait away with you," he observed,
+changing the subject with a directness which he fancied would increase
+her annoyance.
+
+"What makes you think so?" she asked, rather drily.
+
+"I thought it a natural question."
+
+"I cannot imagine what I should do with it. I shall leave it with him."
+
+"You will let him send it to the Salon in Paris, of course?"
+
+"If he likes. You seem interested in the fate of the picture."
+
+"A little. I wondered why you did not have it here, as it has been
+finished so long."
+
+"Instead of that hideous mirror, you mean? There would be less variety.
+I should always see myself in the same dress."
+
+"No--on the opposite wall. You might compare truth with fiction in that
+way."
+
+"To the advantage of Gouache's fiction, you would say. You were more
+complimentary a little while ago."
+
+"You imagine more rudeness than even I am capable of inventing."
+
+"That is saying much. Why did you change the subject just now?"
+
+"Because I saw that you were annoyed at something. Besides, we were
+talking about myself, if I remember rightly."
+
+"Have you never heard that a man should always talk to a woman about
+himself or herself?"
+
+"No. I never heard that. Shall we talk of you, then, Madame?"
+
+"Do you care to talk of me?" asked Maria Consuelo.
+
+Another direct attack, Orsino thought.
+
+"I would rather hear you talk of yourself," he answered without the
+least hesitation.
+
+"If I were to tell you my thoughts about myself at the present moment,
+they would surprise you very much."
+
+"Agreeably or disagreeably?"
+
+"I do not know. Are you vain?"
+
+"As a peacock!" replied Orsino quickly.
+
+"Ah--then what I am thinking would not interest you."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because if it is not flattering it would wound you, and if it is
+flattering it would disappoint you--by falling short of your ideal of
+yourself."
+
+"Yet I confess that I would like to know what you think of me, though I
+would much rather hear what you think of yourself."
+
+"On one condition, I will tell you."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That you will give me your word to give me your own opinion of me
+afterwards."
+
+"The adjectives are ready, Madame, I give you my word."
+
+"You give it so easily! How can I believe you?"
+
+"It is so easy to give in such a case, when one has nothing disagreeable
+to say."
+
+"Then you think me agreeable?"
+
+"Eminently!"
+
+"And charming?"
+
+"Perfectly!"
+
+"And beautiful?"
+
+"How can you doubt it?"
+
+"And in all other respects exactly like all the women in society to whom
+you repeat the same commonplaces every day of your life?"
+
+The feint had been dexterous and the thrust was sudden, straight and
+unexpected.
+
+"Madame!" exclaimed Orsino in the deprecatory tone of a man taken by
+surprise.
+
+"You see--you have nothing to say!" She laughed a little bitterly.
+
+"You take too much for granted," he said, recovering himself. "You
+suppose that because I agree with you upon one point after another, I
+agree with you in the conclusion. You do not even wait to hear my
+answer, and you tell me that I am checkmated when I have a dozen moves
+from which to choose. Besides, you have directly infringed the
+conditions. You have fired before the signal and an arbitration would go
+against you. You have done fifty things contrary to agreement, and you
+accuse me of being dumb in my own defence. There is not much justice in
+that. You promise to tell me a certain secret on condition that I will
+tell you another. Then, without saying a word on your own part you
+stone me with quick questions and cry victory because I protest. You
+begin before I have had so much as--"
+
+"For heaven's sake stop!" cried Maria Consuelo, interrupting a speech
+which threatened to go on for twenty minutes. "You talk of chess,
+duelling and stoning to death, in one sentence--I am utterly confused!
+You upset all my ideas!"
+
+"Considering how you have disturbed mine, it is a fair revenge. And
+since we both admit that we have disturbed that balance upon which alone
+depends all possibility of conversation, I think that I can do nothing
+more graceful--pardon me, nothing less ungraceful--than wish you a
+pleasant journey, which I do with all my heart, Madame."
+
+Thereupon Orsino rose and took his hat.
+
+"Sit down. Do not go yet," said Maria Consuelo, growing a shade paler,
+and speaking with an evident effort.
+
+"Ah--true!" exclaimed Orsino. "We were forgetting the little commission
+you spoke of in your note. I am entirely at your service."
+
+Maria Consuelo looked at him quickly and her lips trembled.
+
+"Never mind that," she said unsteadily. "I will not trouble you. But I
+do not want you to go away as--as you were going. I feel as though we
+had been quarrelling. Perhaps we have. But let us say we are good
+friends--if we only say it."
+
+Orsino was touched and disturbed. Her face was very white and her hand
+trembled visibly as she held it out. He took it in his own without
+hesitation.
+
+"If you care for my friendship, you shall have no better friend in the
+world than I," he said, simply and naturally.
+
+"Thank you--good-bye. I shall leave to-morrow."
+
+The words were almost broken, as though she were losing control of her
+voice. As he closed the door behind him, the sound of a wild and
+passionate sob came to him through the panel. He stood still, listening
+and hesitating. The truth which would have long been clear to an older
+or a vainer man, flashed upon him suddenly. She loved him very much, and
+he no longer cared for her. That was the reason why she had behaved so
+strangely, throwing her pride and dignity to the winds in her desperate
+attempt to get from him a single kind and affectionate word--from him,
+who had poured into her ear so many words of love but two months
+earlier, and from whom to draw a bare admission of friendship to-day she
+had almost shed tears.
+
+To go back into the room would be madness; since he did not love her, it
+would almost be an insult. He bent his head and walked slowly down the
+corridor. He had not gone far, when he was confronted by a small dark
+figure that stopped the way. He recognised Maria Consuelo's elderly
+maid.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Signore Principe," said the little black-eyed woman.
+"You will allow me to say a few words? I thank you, Eccellenza. It is
+about my Signora, in there, of whom I have charge."
+
+"Of whom, you have charge?" repeated Orsino, not understanding her.
+
+"Yes--precisely. Of course, I am only her maid. You understand that. But
+I have charge of her though she does not know it. The poor Signora has
+had terrible trouble during the last few years, and at times--you
+understand? She is a little--yes--here." She tapped her forehead. "She
+is better now. But in my position I sometimes think it wiser to warn
+some friend of hers--in strict confidence. It sometimes saves some
+little unnecessary complication, and I was ordered to do so by the
+doctors we last consulted in Paris. You will forgive me, Eccellenza, I
+am sure."
+
+Orsino stared at the woman for some seconds in blank astonishment. She
+smiled in a placid, self-confident way.
+
+"You mean that Madame d'Aranjuez is--mentally deranged, and that you are
+her keeper? It is a little hard to believe, I confess."
+
+"Would you like to see my certificates, Signor Principe? Or the written
+directions of the doctors? I am sure you are discreet."
+
+"I have no right to see anything of the kind," answered Orsino coldly.
+"Of course, if you are acting under instructions it is no concern of
+mine."
+
+He would have gone forward, but she suddenly produced a small bit of
+note-paper, neatly folded, and offered it to him.
+
+"I thought you might like to know where we are until we return," she
+said, continuing to speak in a very low voice. "It is the address."
+
+Orsino made an impatient gesture. He was on the point of refusing the
+information which he had not taken the trouble to ask of Maria Consuelo
+herself. But he changed his mind and felt in his pocket for something to
+give the woman. It seemed the easiest and simplest way of getting rid of
+her. The only note he had, chanced to be one of greater value than
+necessary.
+
+"A thousand thanks, Eccellenza!" whispered the maid, overcome by what
+she took for an intentional piece of generosity.
+
+Orsino left the hotel as quickly as he could.
+
+"For improbable situations, commend me to the nineteenth century and the
+society in which we live!" he said to himself as he emerged into the
+street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+It was long before Orsino saw Maria Consuelo again, but the
+circumstances of his last meeting with her constantly recurred to his
+mind during the following months. It is one of the chief characteristics
+of Rome that it seems to be one of the most central cities in Europe
+during the winter, whereas in the summer months it appears to be
+immensely remote from the rest of the civilised world. From having been
+the prey of the inexpressible foreigner in his shooting season, it
+suddenly becomes, and remains during about five months, the happy
+hunting ground of the silent flea, the buzzing fly and the insinuating
+mosquito. The streets are, indeed, still full of people, and long lines
+of carriages may be seen towards sunset in the Villa Borghesa and in the
+narrow Corso. Rome and the Romans are not easily parted as London and
+London society, for instance. May comes--the queen of the months in the
+south. June follows. Southern blood rejoices in the first strong
+sunshine. July trudges in at the gates, sweating under the cloudless
+sky, heavy, slow of foot, oppressed by the breath of the coming
+dog-star. Still the nights are cool. Still, towards sunset, the
+refreshing breeze sweeps up from the sea and fills the streets. Then
+behind closely fastened blinds, the glass windows are opened and the
+weary hand drops the fan at last. Then men and women array themselves in
+the garments of civilisation and sally forth, in carriages, on foot, and
+in trams, according to the degrees of social importance which provide
+that in old countries the middle term shall be made to suffer for the
+priceless treasure of a respectability which is a little higher than the
+tram and financially not quite equal to the cab. Then, at that magic
+touch of the west wind the house-fly retires to his own peculiar
+Inferno, wherever that may be, the mosquito and the gnat pause in their
+work of darkness and blood to concert fresh and more bloodthirsty deeds,
+and even the joyous and wicked flea tires of the war dance and lays down
+his weary head to snatch a hard-earned nap. July drags on, and terrible
+August treads the burning streets bleaching the very dust up on the
+pavement, scourging the broad campagna with fiery lashes of heat. Then
+the white-hot sky reddens in the evening when it cools, as the white
+iron does when it is taken from the forge. Then at last, all those who
+can escape from the condemned city flee for their lives to the hills,
+while those who must face the torment of the sun and the poison of the
+air turn pale in their sufferings, feebly curse their fate and then grow
+listless, weak and irresponsible as over-driven galley slaves,
+indifferent to everything, work, rest, blows, food, sleep and the hope
+of release. The sky darkens suddenly. There is a sort of horror in the
+stifling air. People do not talk much, and if they do are apt to quarrel
+and sometimes to kill one another without warning. The plash of the
+fountains has a dull sound like the pouring out of molten lead. The
+horses' hoofs strike visible sparks out of the grey stones in broad
+daylight. Many houses are shut, and one fancies that there must be a
+dead man in each whom no one will bury. A few great drops of rain make
+ink-stains on the pavement at noon, and there is an exasperating,
+half-sulphurous smell abroad. Late in the afternoon they fall again. An
+evil wind comes in hot blasts from all quarters at once--then a low roar
+like an earthquake and presently a crash that jars upon the overwrought
+nerves--great and plashing drops again, a sharp short flash--then crash
+upon crash, deluge upon deluge, and the worst is over. Summer has
+received its first mortal wound. But its death is more fatal than its
+life. The noontide heat is fierce and drinks up the moisture of the rain
+and the fetid dust with it. The fever-wraith rises in the damp, cool
+night, far out in the campagna, and steals up to the walls of the city,
+and over them and under them and into the houses. If there are any yet
+left in Rome who can by any possibility take themselves out of it, they
+are not long in going. Till that moment, there has been only suffering
+to be borne; now, there is danger of something worse. Now, indeed, the
+city becomes a desert inhabited by white-faced ghosts. Now, if it be a
+year of cholera, the dead carts rattle through the streets all night on
+their way to the gate of Saint Lawrence, and the workmen count their
+numbers when they meet at dawn. But the bad days are not many, if only
+there be rain enough, for a little is worse than none. The nights
+lengthen and the September gales sweep away the poison-mists with kindly
+strength. Body and soul revive, as the ripe grapes appear in their
+vine-covered baskets at the street corners. Rich October is coming, the
+month in which the small citizens of Rome take their wives and the
+children to the near towns, to Marino, to Froscati, to Albano and
+Aricia, to eat late fruits and drink new must, with songs and laughter,
+and small miseries and great delights such as are remembered a whole
+year. The first clear breeze out of the north shakes down the dying
+leaves and brightens the blue air. The brown campagna turns green again,
+and the heart of the poor lame cab-horse is lifted up. The huge porter
+of the palace lays aside his linen coat and his pipe, and opens wide the
+great gates; for the masters are coming back, from their castles and
+country places, from the sea and from the mountains, from north and
+south, from the magic shore of Sorrento, and from distant French bathing
+places, some with brides or husbands, some with rosy Roman babies making
+their first trumphal entrance into Rome--and some, again, returning
+companionless to the home they had left in companionship. The great and
+complicated machinery of social life is set in order and repaired for
+the winter; the lost or damaged pieces in the engine are carefully
+replaced with new ones which will do as well or better, the joints and
+bearings are lubricated, the whistle of the first invitation is heard,
+there is some puffing and a little creaking at first, and then the big
+wheels begin to go slowly round, solemnly and regularly as ever, while
+all the little wheels run as fast as they can and set fire to their
+axles in the attempt to keep up the speed, and are finally jammed and
+caught up and smashed, as little wheels are sure to be when they try to
+act like big ones. But unless something happens to one of the very
+biggest the machine does not stop until the end of the season, when it
+is taken to pieces again for repairs.
+
+That is the brief history of a Roman year, of which the main points are
+very much like those of its predecessor and successor. The framework is
+the same, but the decorations change, slowly, surely and not, perhaps,
+advantageously, as the younger generation crowds into the place of the
+older--as young acquaintances take the place of old friends, as faces
+strange to us hide faces we have loved.
+
+Orsino Saracinesca, in his new character as a contractor and a man of
+business, knew that he must either spend the greater part of the summer
+in town, or leave his affairs in the hands of Andrea Contini. The latter
+course was repugnant to him, partly because he still felt a beginner's
+interest in his first success, and partly because he had a shrewd
+suspicion that Contini, if left to himself in the hot weather, might be
+tempted to devote more time to music than to architecture. The business,
+too, was now on a much larger scale than before, though Orsino had taken
+his mother's advice in not at once going so far as he might have gone.
+It needed all his own restless energy, all Contini's practical talents,
+and perhaps more of Del Ferice's influence than either of them
+suspected, to keep it going on the road to success.
+
+In July Orsino's people made ready to go up to Saracinesca. The old
+prince, to every one's surprise, declared his intention of going to
+England, and roughly refused to be accompanied by any one of the family.
+He wanted to find out some old friends, he said, and desired the
+satisfaction of spending a couple of months in peace, which was quite
+impossible at home, owing to Giovanni's outrageous temper and Orsino's
+craze for business. He thereupon embraced them all affectionately,
+indulged in a hearty laugh and departed in a special carriage with his
+own servants.
+
+Giovanni objected to Orsino's staying in Rome during the great heat.
+Though Orsino had not as yet entered into any explanation with his
+father, but the latter understood well enough that the business had
+turned out better than had been expected and began to feel an interest
+in its further success, for his son's sake. He saw the boy developing
+into a man by a process which he would naturally have supposed to be the
+worst possible one, judging from his own point of view. But he could not
+find fault with the result. There was no disputing the mental
+superiority of the Orsino of July over the Orsino of the preceding
+January. Whatever the sensation which Giovanni experienced as he
+contemplated the growing change, it was not one of anxiety nor of
+disappointment. But he had a Roman's well-founded prejudice against
+spending August and September in town. His objections gave rise to some
+discussion, in which Corona joined.
+
+Orsino enlarged upon the necessity of attending in person to the
+execution of his contracts. Giovanni suggested that he should find some
+trustworthy person to take his place. Corona was in favour of a
+compromise. It would be easy, she said, for Orsino to spend two or three
+days of every week in Rome and the remainder in the country with his
+father and mother. They were all three quite right according to their
+own views, and they all three knew it. Moreover they were all three very
+obstinate people. The consequence was that Orsino, who was in
+possession, so to say, since the other two were trying to make him
+change his mind, got the best of the argument, and won his first pitched
+battle. Not that there was any apparent hostility, or that any of the
+three spoke hotly or loudly. They were none of them like old
+Saracinesca, whose feats of argumentation were vehement, eccentric and
+fiery as his own nature. They talked with apparent calm through a long
+summer's afternoon, and the vanquished retired with a fairly good grace,
+leaving Orsino master of the field. But on that occasion Giovanni
+Saracinesca first formed the opinion that his son was a match for him,
+and that it would be wise in future to ascertain the chances of success
+before incurring the risk of a humiliating defeat.
+
+Giovanni and his wife went out together and talked over the matter as
+their carriage swept round the great avenues of Villa Borghesa.
+
+"There is no question of the fact that Orsino is growing up--is grown up
+already," said Sant' Ilario, glancing at Corona's calm, dark face.
+
+She smiled with a certain pride, as she heard the words.
+
+"Yes," she answered, "he is a man. It is a mistake to treat him as a boy
+any longer."
+
+"Do you think it is this sudden interest in business that has changed
+him so?"
+
+"Of course--what else?"
+
+"Madame d'Aranjuez, for instance," Giovanni suggested.
+
+"I do not believe she ever had the least influence over him. The
+flirtation seems to have died a natural death. I confess, I hoped it
+might end in that way, and I am glad if it has. And I am very glad that
+Orsino is succeeding so well. Do you know, dear? I am glad, because you
+did not believe it possible that he should."
+
+"No, I did not. And now that I begin to understand it, he does not like
+to talk to me about his affairs. I suppose that is only natural. Tell
+me--has he really made money? Or have you been giving him money to lose,
+in order that he may buy experience."
+
+"He has succeeded alone," said Corona proudly. "I would give him
+whatever he needed, but he needs nothing. He is immensely clever and
+immensely energetic. How could he fail?"
+
+"You seem to admire our firstborn, my dear," observed Giovanni with a
+smile.
+
+"To tell the truth, I do. I have no doubt that he does all sorts of
+things which he ought not to do, and of which I know nothing. You did
+the same at his age, and I shall be quite satisfied if he turns out like
+you. I would not like to have a lady-like son with white hands and
+delicate sensibilities, and hypocritical affectations of exaggerated
+morality. I think I should be capable of trying to make such a boy bad,
+if it only made him manly--though I daresay that would be very wrong."
+
+"No doubt," said Giovanni. "But we shall not be placed in any such
+position by Orsino, my dear. You remember that little affair last year,
+in England? It was very nearly a scandal. But then--the English are
+easily led into temptation and very easily scandalised afterwards.
+Orsino will not err in the direction of hypocritical morality. But that
+is not the question. I wish to know, from you since he does not confide
+in me, how far he is really succeeding."
+
+Corona gave her husband a remarkably clear statement of Orsino's
+affairs, without exaggeration so far as the facts were concerned, but
+not without highly favourable comment. She did not attempt to conceal
+her triumph, now that success had been in a measure attained, and she
+did not hesitate to tell Giovanni that he ought to have encouraged and
+supported the boy from the first.
+
+Giovanni listened with very great interest, and bore her affectionate
+reproaches with equanimity. He felt in his heart that he had done right,
+and he somehow still believed that things were not in reality all that
+they seemed to be. There was something in Orsino's immediate success
+against odds apparently heavy, which disturbed his judgment. He had not,
+it was true, any personal experience of the building speculations in the
+city, nor of financial transactions in general, as at present
+understood, and he had recently heard of cases in which individuals had
+succeeded beyond their own wildest expectations. There was, perhaps, no
+reason why Orsino should not do as well as other people, or even better,
+in spite of his extreme youth. Andrea Contini was probably a man of
+superior talent, well able to have directed the whole affair alone, if
+other circumstances had been favourable to him, and there was on the
+whole nothing to prove that the two young men had received more than
+their fair share of assistance or accommodation from the bank. But
+Giovanni knew well enough that Del Ferice was the most influential
+personage in the bank in question, and the mere suggestion of his name
+lent to the whole affair a suspicious quality which disturbed Orsino's
+father. In spite of all reasonable reflexions there was an air of
+unnatural good fortune in the case which he did not like, and he had
+enough experience of Del Ferice's tortuous character to distrust his
+intentions. He would have preferred to see his son lose money through
+Ugo rather than that Orsino should owe the latter the smallest thanks.
+The fact that he had not spoken with the man for over twenty years did
+not increase the confidence he felt in him. In that time Del Ferice had
+developed into a very important personage, having much greater power to
+do harm than he had possessed in former days, and it was not to be
+supposed that he had forgotten old wounds or given up all hope of
+avenging them. Del Ferice was not very subject to that sort of
+forgetfulness.
+
+When Corona had finished speaking, Giovanni was silent for a few
+moments.
+
+"Is it not splendid?" Corona asked enthusiastically. "Why do you not say
+anything? One would think that you were not pleased."
+
+"On the contrary, as far as Orsino is concerned, I am delighted. But I
+do not trust Del Ferice."
+
+"Del Ferice is far too clever a man to ruin Orsino," answered Corona.
+
+"Exactly. That is the trouble. That is what makes me feel that though
+Orsino has worked hard and shown extraordinary intelligence--and
+deserves credit for that--yet he would not have succeeded in the same
+way if he had dealt with any other bank. Del Ferice has helped him.
+Possibly Orsino knows that, as well as we do, but he certainly does not
+know what part Del Ferice played in our lives, Corona. If he did, he
+would not accept his help."
+
+In her turn Corona was silent and a look of disappointment came into her
+face. She remembered a certain afternoon in the mountains when she had
+entreated Giovanni to let Del Ferice escape, and Giovanni had yielded
+reluctantly and had given the fugitive a guide to take him to the
+frontier. She wondered whether the generous impulse of that day was to
+bear evil fruit at last.
+
+"Orsino knows nothing about it at all," she said at last. "We kept the
+secret of Del Ferice's escape very carefully--for there were good
+reasons to be careful in those days. Orsino only knows that you once
+fought a duel with the man and wounded him."
+
+"I think it is time that he knew more."
+
+"Of what use can it be to tell him those old stories?" asked Corona.
+"And after all, I do not believe that Del Ferice has done so much. If
+you could have followed Orsino's work, day by day and week by week, as I
+have, you would see how much is really due to his energy. Any other
+banker would have done as much as he. Besides, it is in Del Ferice's own
+interest--"
+
+"That is the trouble," interrupted Giovanni. "It is bad enough that he
+should help Orsino. It is much worse that he should help him in order to
+make use of him. If, as you say, any other bank would do as much, then
+let him go to another bank. If he owes Del Ferice money at the present
+moment, we will pay it for him."
+
+"You forget that he has bought the buildings he is now finishing, from
+Del Ferice, on a mortgage."
+
+Giovanni laughed a little.
+
+"How you have learned to talk about mortgages and deeds and all sorts of
+business!" he exclaimed. "But what you say is not an objection. We can
+pay off these mortgages, I suppose, and take the risk ourselves."
+
+"Of course we could do that," Corona answered, thoughtfully. "But I
+really think you exaggerate the whole affair. For the time being, Del
+Ferice is not a man, but a banker. His personal character and former
+doings do not enter into the matter."
+
+"I think they do," said Giovanni, still unconvinced.
+
+"At all events, do not make trouble now, dear," said Corona in earnest
+tones. "Let the present contract be executed and finished, and then
+speak to Orsino before he makes another. Whatever Del Ferice may have
+done, you can see for yourself that Orsino is developing in a way we had
+not expected, and is becoming a serious, energetic man. Do not step in
+now, and check the growth of what is good. You will regret it as much as
+I shall. When he has finished these buildings he will have enough
+experience to make a new departure."
+
+"I hate the idea of receiving a favour from Del Ferice, or of laying him
+under an obligation. I think I will go to him myself."
+
+"To Del Ferice?" Corona started and looked round at Giovanni as she sat.
+She had a sudden vision of new trouble.
+
+"Yes. Why not? I will go to him and tell him that I would rather wind up
+my son's business with him, as our former relations were not of a nature
+to make transactions of mutual profit either fitting or even permissible
+between any of our family and Ugo Del Ferice."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Giovanni, do not do that."
+
+"And why not?" He was surprised at her evident distress.
+
+"For my sake, then--do not quarrel with Del Ferice--it was different
+then, in the old days. I could not bear it now--" she stopped, and her
+lower lip trembled a little.
+
+"Do you love me better than you did then, Corona?"
+
+"So much better--I cannot tell you."
+
+She touched his hand with hers and her dark eyes were a little veiled as
+they met his. Both were silent for a moment.
+
+"I have no intention of quarrelling with Del Ferice, dear," said
+Giovanni, gently.
+
+His face had grown a shade paler as she spoke. The power of her hand and
+voice to move him, had not diminished in all the years of peaceful
+happiness that had passed so quickly.
+
+"I do not mean any such thing," he said again. "But I mean this. I will
+not have it said that Del Ferice has made a fortune for Orsino, nor
+that Orsino has helped Del Ferice's interests. I see no way but to
+interfere myself. I can do it without the suspicion of a quarrel."
+
+"It will be a great mistake, Giovanni. Wait till there is a new
+contract."
+
+"I will think of it, before doing anything definite."
+
+Corona well knew that she should get no greater concession than this.
+The point of honour had been touched in Giovanni's sensibilities and his
+character was stubborn and determined where his old prejudices were
+concerned. She loved him very dearly, and this very obstinacy of his
+pleased her. But she fancied that trouble of some sort was imminent. She
+understood her son's nature, too, and dreaded lest he should be forced
+into opposing his father.
+
+It struck her that she might herself act as intermediary. She could
+certainly obtain concessions from Orsino which Giovanni could not hope
+to extract by force or stratagem. But the wisdom of her own proposal in
+the matter seemed unassailable. The business now in hand should be
+allowed to run its natural course before anything was done to break off
+the relations between Orsino and Del Ferice.
+
+In the evening she found an opportunity of speaking with Orsino in
+private. She repeated to him the details of her conversation with
+Giovanni during the drive in the afternoon.
+
+"My dear mother," answered Orsino, "I do not trust Del Ferice any more
+than you and my father trust him. You talk of things which he did years
+ago, but you do not tell me what those things were. So far as I
+understand, it all happened before you were married. My father and he
+quarrelled about something, and I suppose there was a lady concerned in
+the matter. Unless you were the lady in question, and unless what he did
+was in the nature of an insult to you, I cannot see how the matter
+concerns me. They fought and it ended there, as affairs of honour do. If
+it touched you, then tell me so, and I will break with Del Ferice
+to-morrow morning."
+
+Corona was silent, for Orsino's speech was very plain, and if she
+answered it all, the answer must be the truth. There could be no escape
+from that. And the truth would be very hard to tell. At that time she
+had been still the wife of old Astrardente, and Del Ferice's offence had
+been that he had purposely concealed himself in the conservatory of the
+Frangipan's palace in order to overhear what Giovanni Saracinesca was
+about to say to another man's wife. The fact that on that memorable
+night she had bravely resisted a very great temptation did not affect
+the difficulty of the present case in any way. She asked herself rather
+whether Del Ferice's eavesdropping would appear to Orsino to be in the
+nature of an insult to her, to use his own words, and she had no doubt
+but that it would seem so. At the same time she would find hard to
+explain to her son why Del Ferice suspected that there was to be
+anything said to her worth overhearing, seeing that she bore at that
+time the name of another man then still living. How could Orsino
+understand all that had gone before? Even now, though she knew that she
+had acted well, she humbly believed that she might have done much
+better. How would her son judge her? She was silent, waiting for him to
+speak again.
+
+"That would be the only conceivable reason for my breaking with Del
+Ferice," said Orsino. "We only have business relations, and I do not go
+to his house. I went once. I saw no reason for telling you so at the
+time, and I have not been there again. It was at the beginning of the
+whole affair. Outside of the bank, we are the merest acquaintances. But
+I repeat what I said. If he ever did anything which makes it
+dishonourable for me to accept even ordinary business services from him,
+let me know it. I have some right to hear the truth."
+
+Corona hesitated, and laid the case again before her own conscience, and
+tried to imagine herself in her son's position. It was hard to reach a
+conclusion. There was no doubt but that when she had learned the truth,
+long after the event, she had felt that she had been insulted and justly
+avenged. If she said nothing now, Orsino would suspect something and
+would assuredly go to his father, from whom he would get a view of the
+case not conspicuous for its moderation. And Giovanni would undoubtedly
+tell his son the details of what had followed, how Del Ferice had
+attempted to hinder the marriage when it was at last possible, and all
+the rest of the story. At the same time, she felt that so far as her
+personal sensibilities were concerned, she had not the least objection
+to the continuance of a mere business relation between Orsino and Del
+Ferice. She was more forgiving than Giovanni.
+
+"I will tell you this much, my dear boy," she said, at last. "That old
+quarrel did concern me and no one else. Your father feels more strongly
+about it than I do, because he fought for me and not for himself. You
+trust me, Orsino. You know that I would rather see you dead than doing
+anything dishonourable. Very well. Do not ask any more questions, and do
+not go to your father about it. Del Ferice has only advanced you money,
+in a business way, on good security and at a high interest. So far as I
+can judge of the point of honour involved, what happened long ago need
+not prevent your doing what you are doing now. Possibly, when you have
+finished the present contract, you may think it wiser to apply to some
+other bank, or to work on your own account with my money."
+
+Corona believed that she had found the best way out of the difficulty,
+and Orsino seemed satisfied, for he nodded thoughtfully and said
+nothing. The day had been filled with argument and discussion about his
+determination to stay in town, and he was weary of the perpetual
+question and answer. He knew his mother well, and was willing to take
+her advice for the present. She, on her part, told Giovanni what she had
+done, and he consented to consider the matter a little longer before
+interfering. He disliked even the idea of a business relation extremely,
+but he feared that there was more behind the appearances of commercial
+fairness than either he or Orsino himself could understand. The better
+Orsino succeeded, the less his father was pleased, and his suspicions
+were not unfounded. He knew from San Giacinto that success was becoming
+uncommon, and he knew that all Orsino's industry and energy could not
+have sufficed to counterbalance his inexperience. Andrea Contini, too,
+had been recommended by Del Ferice, and was presumably Del Ferice's man.
+
+On the following day Giovanni and Corona with the three younger boys
+went up to Saracinesca leaving Orsino alone in the great palace, to his
+own considerable satisfaction. He was well pleased with himself and
+especially at having carried his point. At his age, and with his
+constitution, the heat was a matter of supreme indifference to him, and
+he looked forward with delight to a summer of uninterrupted work in the
+not uncongenial society of Andrea Contini. As for the work itself, it
+was beginning to have a sort of fascination for him as he understood it
+better. The love of building, the passion for stone and brick and
+mortar, is inherent in some natures, and is capable of growing into a
+mania little short of actual insanity. Orsino began to ask himself
+seriously whether it were too late to study architecture as a profession
+and in the meanwhile he learned more of it in practice from Contini than
+he could have acquired in twice the time at any polytechnic school in
+Europe.
+
+He liked Contini himself more and more as the days went by. Hitherto he
+had been much inclined to judge his own countrymen from his own class.
+He was beginning to see that he had understood little or nothing of the
+real Italian nature when uninfluenced by foreign blood. The study
+interested and pleased him. Only one unpleasant memory occasionally
+disturbed his peace of mind. When he thought of his last meeting with
+Maria Consuelo he hated himself for the part he had played, though he
+was quite unable to account logically, upon his assumed principles, for
+the severity of his self-condemnation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Orsino necessarily led a monotonous life, though, his occupation was an
+absorbing one. Very early in the morning he was with Contini where the
+building was going on. He then passed the hot hours of the day in the
+office, which, as before, had been established in one of the unfinished
+houses. Towards evening, he went down into the city to his home,
+refreshed himself after his long day's work, and then walked or drove
+until half past eight, when he went to dinner in the garden of a great
+restaurant in the Corso. Here he met a few acquaintances who, like
+himself, had reasons for staying in town after their families had left.
+He always sat at the same small table, at which there was barely room
+for two persons, for he preferred to be alone, and he rarely asked a
+passing friend to sit down with him.
+
+On a certain hot evening in the beginning of August he had just taken
+his seat, and was trying to make up his mind whether he were hungry
+enough to eat anything or whether it would not be less trouble to drink
+a glass of iced coffee and go away, when he was aware of a lank shadow
+cast across the white cloth by the glaring electric light. He looked up
+and saw Spicca standing there, apparently uncertain where to sit down
+for the place was fuller than usual. He liked the melancholy old man and
+spoke to him, offering to share his table.
+
+Spicca hesitated a moment and then accepted the invitation. He deposited
+his hat upon a chair beside him and leaned back, evidently exhausted
+either in mind or body, if not in both.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you, my dear Orsino," he said. "There is an
+abominable crowd here, which means an unusual number of people to
+avoid--just as many as I know, in fact, excepting yourself."
+
+"I am glad you do not wish to avoid me, too," observed Orsino, by way of
+saying something.
+
+"You are a less evil--so I choose you in preference to the greater,"
+Spicca answered. But there was a not unkindly look in his sunken eyes as
+he spoke.
+
+He tipped the great flask of Chianti that hung in its swinging plated
+cradle in the middle of the table, and filled two glasses.
+
+"Since all that is good has been abolished, let us drink to the least of
+evils," he said, "in other words, to each other."
+
+"To the absence of friends," answered Orsino, touching the wine with his
+lips.
+
+Spicca emptied his glass slowly and then looked at him.
+
+"I like that toast," he said. "To the absence of friends. I daresay you
+have heard of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Do they still teach
+the dear old tale in these modern schools? No. But you have heard
+it--very well. You will remember that if they had not allowed the
+serpent to scrape acquaintance with them, on pretence of a friendly
+interest in their intellectual development, Adam and Eve would still be
+inventing names for the angelic little wild beasts who were too
+well-behaved to eat them. They would still be in paradise. Moreover
+Orsino Saracinesca and John Nepomucene Spicca would not be in daily
+danger of poisoning in this vile cookshop. Summary ejection from Eden
+was the first consequence of friendship, and its results are similar to
+this day. What nauseous mess are we to swallow to-night? Have you looked
+at the card?"
+
+Orsino laughed a little. He foresaw that Spicca would not be dull
+company on this particular evening. Something unusually disagreeable had
+probably happened to him during the day. After long and melancholy
+hesitation he ordered something which he believed he could eat, and
+Orsino followed his example.
+
+"Are all your people out of town?" Spicca asked, after a pause.
+
+"Yes. I am alone."
+
+"And what in the world is the attraction here? Why do you stay? I do not
+wish to be indiscreet, and I was never afflicted with curiosity. But
+cases of mental alienation grow more common every day, and as an old
+friend of your father's I cannot overlook symptoms of madness in you. A
+really sane person avoids Rome in August."
+
+"It strikes me that I might say the same to you," answered Orsino. "I am
+kept here by business. You have not even that excuse."
+
+"How do you know?" asked Spicca, sharply. "Business has two main
+elements--credit and debit. The one means the absence of the other. I
+leave it to your lively intelligence to decide which of the two means
+Rome in August, and which means Trouville or St. Moritz."
+
+"I had not thought of it in that light."
+
+"No? I daresay not. I constantly think of it."
+
+"There are other places, nearer than St. Moritz," suggested Orsino. "Why
+not go to Sorrento?"
+
+"There was such a place once--but my friends have found it out.
+Nevertheless, I might go there. It is better to suffer friendship in the
+spirit than fever in the body. But I have a reason for staying here just
+at present--a very good one."
+
+"Without indiscretion--?"
+
+"No, certainly not without considerable indiscretion. Take some more
+wine. When intoxication is bliss it is folly to be sober, as the proverb
+says. I cannot get tipsy, but you may, and that will be almost as
+amusing. The main object of drinking wine is that one person should make
+confidences for the other to laugh at--the one enjoys it quite as much
+as the other."
+
+"I would rather be the other," said Orsino with a laugh.
+
+"In all cases in life it is better to be the other person," observed
+Spicca, thoughtfully, though the remark lacked precision.
+
+"You mean the patient and not the agent, I suppose?"
+
+"No. I mean the spectator. The spectator is a well fed, indifferent
+personage who laughs at the play and goes home to supper--perdition upon
+him and his kind! He is the abomination of desolation in a front stall,
+looking on while better men cut one another's throats. He is a fat man
+with a pink complexion and small eyes, and when he has watched other
+people's troubles long enough, he retires to his comfortable vault in
+the family chapel in the Campo Varano, which is decorated with coloured
+tiles, embellished with a modern altar piece and adorned with a bust of
+himself by a good sculptor. Even in death, he is still the spectator,
+grinning through the window of his sanctuary at the rows of nameless
+graves outside. He is happy and self-satisfied still--even in marble. It
+is worth living to be such a man."
+
+"It is not an exciting life," remarked Orsino.
+
+"No. That is the beauty of it. Look at me. I have never succeeded in
+imitating that well-to-do, thoroughly worthy villain. I began too late.
+Take warning, Orsino. You are young. Grow fat and look on--then you will
+die happy. All the philosophy of life is there. Farinaceous food, money
+and a wife. That is the recipe. Since you have money you can purchase
+the gruel and the affections. Waste no time in making the investment."
+
+"I never heard you advocate marriage before. You seem to have changed
+your mind, of late."
+
+"Not in the least. I distinguish between being married and taking a
+wife, that is all."
+
+"Rather a fine distinction."
+
+"The only difference between a prisoner and his gaoler is that they are
+on opposite sides of the same wall. Take some more wine. We will drink
+to the man on the outside."
+
+"May you never be inside," said Orsino.
+
+Spicca emptied his glass and looked at him, as he set it down again.
+
+"May you never know what it is to have been inside," he said.
+
+"You speak as though you had some experience."
+
+"Yes, I have--through an acquaintance of mine."
+
+"That is the most agreeable way of gaining experience."
+
+"Yes," answered Spicca with a ghastly smile. "Perhaps I may tell you the
+story some day. You may profit by it. It ended rather dramatically--so
+far as it can be said to have ended at all. But we will not speak of it
+just now. Here is another dish of poison--do you call that thing a fish,
+Checco? Ah--yes. I perceive that you are right. The fact is apparent at
+a great distance. Take it away. We are all mortal, Checco, but we do not
+like to be reminded of it so very forcibly. Give me a tomato and some
+vinegar."
+
+"And the birds, Signore? Do you not want them any more?"
+
+"The birds--yes, I had forgotten. And another flask of wine, Checco."
+
+"It is not empty yet, Signore," observed the waiter lifting the
+rush-covered bottle and shaking it a little.
+
+Spicca silently poured out two glasses and handed him the empty flask.
+He seemed to be very thirsty. Presently he got his birds. They proved
+eatable, for quails are to be had all through the summer in Italy, and
+he began to eat in silence. Orsino watched him with some curiosity
+wondering whether the quantity of wine he drank would not ultimately
+produce some effect. As yet, however, none was visible; his cadaverous
+face was as pale and quiet as ever, and his sunken eyes had their usual
+expression.
+
+"And how does your business go on, Orsino?" he asked, after a long
+silence.
+
+Orsino answered him willingly enough and gave him some account of his
+doings. He grew somewhat enthusiastic as he compared his present busy
+life with his former idleness.
+
+"I like the way you did it, in spite of everybody's advice," said
+Spicca, kindly. "A man who can jump through the paper ring of Roman
+prejudice without stumbling must be nimble and have good legs. So
+nobody gave you a word of encouragement?"
+
+"Only one person, at first. I think you know her--Madame d'Aranjuez. I
+used to see her often just at that time."
+
+"Madame d'Aranjuez?" Spicca looked up sharply, pausing with his glass in
+his hand.
+
+"You know her?"
+
+"Very well indeed," answered the old man, before he drank. "Tell me,
+Orsino," he continued, when he had finished the draught, "are you in
+love with that lady?"
+
+Orsino was surprised by the directness of the question, but he did not
+show it.
+
+"Not in the least," he answered, coolly.
+
+"Then why did you act as though you were?" asked Spicca looking him
+through and through.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you were watching me all winter?" inquired
+Orsino, bending his black eyebrows rather angrily.
+
+"Circumstances made it inevitable that I should know of your visits.
+There was a time when you saw her every day."
+
+"I do not know what the circumstances, as you call them, were," answered
+Orsino. "But I do not like to be watched--even by my father's old
+friends."
+
+"Keep your temper, Orsino," said Spicca quietly. "Quarrelling is always
+ridiculous unless somebody is killed, and then it is inconvenient. If
+you understood the nature of my acquaintance with Maria Consuelo--with
+Madame d'Aranjuez, you would see that while not meaning to spy upon you
+in the least, I could not be ignorant of your movements."
+
+"Your acquaintance must be a very close one," observed Orsino, far from
+pacified.
+
+"So close that it has justified me in doing very odd things on her
+account. You will not accuse me of taking a needless and officious
+interest in the affairs of others, I think. My own are quite enough for
+me. It chances that they are intimately connected with the doings of
+Madame d'Aranjuez, and have been so for a number of years. The fact that
+I do not desire the connexion to be known does not make it easier for me
+to act, when I am obliged to act at all. I did not ask an idle question
+when I asked you if you loved her."
+
+"I confess that I do not at all understand the situation," said Orsino.
+
+"No. It is not easy to understand, unless I give you the key to it. And
+yet you know more already than any one in Rome. I shall be obliged if
+you will not repeat what you know."
+
+"You may trust me," answered Orsino, who saw from Spicca's manner that
+the matter was very serious.
+
+"Thank you. I see that you are cured of the idea that I have been
+frivolously spying upon you for my own amusement."
+
+Orsino was silent. He thought of what had happened after he had taken
+leave of Maria Consuelo. The mysterious maid who called herself Maria
+Consuelo's nurse, or keeper, had perhaps spoken the truth. It was
+possible that Spicca was one of the guardians responsible to an unknown
+person for the insane lady's safety, and that he was consequently daily
+informed by the maid of the coming and going of visitors, and of other
+minor events. On the other hand it seemed odd that Maria Consuelo should
+be at liberty to go whithersoever she pleased. She could not reasonably
+be supposed to have a guardian in every city of Europe. The more he
+thought of this improbability the less he understood the truth.
+
+"I suppose I cannot hope that you will tell me more," he said.
+
+"I do not see why I should," answered Spicca, drinking again. "I asked
+you an indiscreet question and I have given you an explanation which you
+are kind enough to accept. Let us say no more about it. It is better to
+avoid unpleasant subjects."
+
+"I should not call Madame d'Aranjuez an unpleasant subject," observed
+Orsino.
+
+"Then why did you suddenly cease to visit her?" asked Spicca.
+
+"For the best of all reasons. Because she repeatedly refused to receive
+me." He was less inclined to take offence now than five minutes earlier.
+"I see that your information was not complete."
+
+"No. I was not aware of that. She must have had a good reason for not
+seeing you."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"But you cannot guess what the reason was?"
+
+"Yes--and no. It depends upon her character, which I do not pretend to
+understand."
+
+"I understand it well enough. I can guess at the fact. You made love to
+her, and one fine day, when she saw that you were losing your head, she
+quietly told her servant to say that she was not at home when you
+called. Is that it?"
+
+"Possibly. You say you know her well--then you know whether she would
+act in that way or not."
+
+"I ought to know. I think she would. She is not like other women--she
+has not the same blood."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Orsino, with a sudden hope that he might learn the
+truth.
+
+"A woman--rather better than the rest--a widow, too, the widow of a man
+who never was her husband--thank God!"
+
+Spicca slowly refilled and emptied his goblet for the tenth time.
+
+"The rest is a secret," he added, when he had finished drinking.
+
+The dark, sunken eyes gazed into Orsino's with an expression so strange
+and full of a sort of inexplicable horror, as to make the young man
+think that the deep potations were beginning to produce an effect upon
+the strong old head. Spicca sat quite still for several minutes after he
+had spoken, and then leaned back in his cane chair with a deep sigh.
+Orsino sighed too, in a sort of unconscious sympathy, for even allowing
+for Spicca's natural melancholy the secret was evidently an unpleasant
+one. Orsino tried to turn the conversation, not, however, without a hope
+of bringing it back unawares to the question which interested him.
+
+"And so you really mean to stay here all summer," he remarked, lighting
+a cigarette and looking at the people seated at a table behind Spicca.
+
+Spicca did not answer at first, and when he did his reply had nothing to
+do with Orsino's interrogatory observation.
+
+"We never get rid of the things we have done in our lives," he said,
+dreamily. "When a man sows seed in a ploughed field some of the grains
+are picked out by birds, and some never sprout. We are much more
+perfectly organised than the earth. The actions we sow in our souls all
+take root, inevitably and fatally--and they all grow to maturity sooner
+or later."
+
+Orsino stared at him for a moment.
+
+"You are in a philosophising mood this evening," he said.
+
+"We are only logic's pawns," continued Spicca without heeding the
+remark. "Or, if you like it better, we are the Devil's chess pieces in
+his match against God. We are made to move each in our own way. The one
+by short irregular steps in every direction, the other in long straight
+lines between starting point and goal--the one stands still, like the
+king-piece, and never moves unless he is driven to it, the other jumps
+unevenly like the knight. It makes no difference. We take a certain
+number of other pieces, and then we are taken ourselves--always by the
+adversary--and tossed aside out of the game. But then, it is easy to
+carry out the simile, because the game itself was founded on the facts
+of life, by the people who invented it."
+
+"No doubt," said Orsino, who was not very much interested.
+
+"Yes. You have only to give the pieces the names of men and women you
+know, and to call the pawns society--you will see how very like real
+life chess can be. The king and queen on each side are a married couple.
+Of course, the object of each queen is to get the other king, and all
+her friends help her--knights, bishops, rooks and her set of society
+pawns. Very like real life, is it not? Wait till you are married."
+
+Spicca smiled grimly and took more wine.
+
+"There at least you have no personal experience," objected Orsino.
+
+But Spicca only smiled again, and vouchsafed no answer.
+
+"Is Madame d'Aranjuez coming back next winter?" asked the young man.
+
+"Madame d'Aranjuez will probably come back, since she is free to consult
+her own tastes," answered Spicca gravely.
+
+"I hope she may be out of danger by that time," said Orsino quietly. He
+had resolved upon a bolder attack than he had hitherto made.
+
+"What danger is she in now?" asked Spicca quietly.
+
+"Surely, you must know."
+
+"I do not understand you. Please speak plainly if you are in earnest."
+
+"Before she went away I called once more. When I was coming away her
+maid met me in the corridor of the hotel and told me that Madame
+d'Aranjuez was not quite sane, and that she, the maid, was in reality
+her keeper, or nurse--or whatever you please to call her."
+
+Spicca laughed harshly. No one could remember to have heard him laugh
+many times.
+
+"Oh--she said that, did she?" He seemed very much amused. "Yes," he
+added presently, "I think Madame d'Aranjuez will be quite out of danger
+before Christmas."
+
+Orsino was more puzzled than ever. He was almost sure that Spicca did
+not look upon the maid's assertion as serious, and in that case, if his
+interest in Maria Consuelo was friendly, it was incredible that he
+should seem amused at what was at least a very dangerous piece of spite
+on the part of a trusted servant.
+
+"Then is there no truth in that woman's statement?" asked Orsino.
+
+"Madame d'Aranjuez seemed perfectly sane when I last saw her," answered
+Spicca indifferently.
+
+"Then what possible interest had the maid in inventing the lie?"
+
+"Ah--what interest? That is quite another matter, as you say. It may not
+have been her own interest."
+
+"You think that Madame d'Aranjuez had instructed her?"
+
+"Not necessarily. Some one else may have suggested the idea, subject to
+the lady's own consent."
+
+"And she would have consented? I do not believe that."
+
+"My dear Orsino, the world is full of such apparently improbable things
+that it is always rash to disbelieve anything on the first hearing. It
+is really much less trouble to accept all that one is told without
+question."
+
+"Of course, if you tell me positively that she wishes to be thought
+mad--"
+
+"I never say anything positively, especially about a woman--and least of
+all about the lady in question, who is undoubtedly eccentric."
+
+Instead of being annoyed, Orsino felt his curiosity growing, and made a
+rash vow to find out the truth at any price. It was inconceivable, he
+thought, that Spicca should still have perfect control of his faculties,
+considering the extent of his potations. The second flask was growing
+light, and Orsino himself had not taken more than two or three glasses.
+Now a Chianti flask never holds less than two quarts. Moreover Spicca
+was generally a very moderate man. He would assuredly not resist the
+confusing effects of the wine much longer and he would probably become
+confidential.
+
+But Orsino had mistaken his man. Spicca's nerves, overwrought by some
+unknown disturbance in his affairs, were in that state in which far
+stronger stimulants than Tuscan wine have little or no effect upon the
+brain. Orsino looked at him and wondered, as many had wondered already,
+what sort of life the man had led, outside and beyond the social
+existence which every one could see. Few men had been dreaded like the
+famous duellist, who had played with the best swordsmen in Europe as a
+cat plays with a mouse. And yet he had been respected, as well as
+feared. There had been that sort of fatality in his quarrels which had
+saved him from the imputation of having sought them. He had never been a
+gambler, as reputed duellists often are. He had never refused to stand
+second for another man out of personal dislike or prejudice. No one had
+ever asked his help in vain, high or low, rich or poor, in a reasonably
+good cause. His acts of kindness came to light accidentally after many
+years. Yet most people fancied that he hated mankind, with that sort of
+generous detestation which never stoops to take a mean advantage. In his
+duels he had always shown the utmost consideration for his adversary and
+the utmost indifference to his own interest when conditions had to be
+made. Above all, he had never killed a man by accident. That is a crime
+which society does not forgive. But he had not failed, either, when he
+had meant to kill. His speech was often bitter, but never spiteful, and,
+having nothing to fear, he was a very truthful man. He was also
+reticent, however, and no one could boast of knowing the story which
+every one agreed in saying had so deeply influenced his life. He had
+often been absent from Rome for long periods, and had been heard of as
+residing in more than one European capital. He had always been supposed
+to be rich, but during the last three years it had become clear to his
+friends that he was poor. That is all, roughly speaking, which was known
+of John Nepomucene, Count Spicca, by the society in which he had spent
+more than half his life.
+
+Orsino, watching the pale and melancholy face, compared himself with his
+companion, and wondered whether any imaginable series of events could
+turn him into such a man at the same age. Yet he admired Spicca, besides
+respecting him. Boy-like, he envied the great duellist his reputation,
+his unerring skill, his unfaltering nerve; he even envied him the fear
+he inspired in those whom he did not like. He thought less highly of his
+sayings now, perhaps, than when he had first been old enough to
+understand them. The youthful affectation of cynicism had agreed well
+with the old man's genuine bitterness, but the pride of growing manhood
+was inclined to put away childish things and had not yet suffered so as
+to understand real suffering. Six months had wrought a change in Orsino,
+and so far the change was for the better. He had been fortunate in
+finding success at the first attempt, and his passing passion for Maria
+Consuelo had left little trace beyond a certain wondering regret that it
+had not been greater, and beyond the recollection of her sad face at
+their parting and of the sobs he had overheard. Though he could only
+give those tears one meaning, he realised less and less as the months
+passed that they had been shed for him.
+
+That Maria Consuelo should often be in his thoughts was no proof that he
+still loved her in the smallest degree. There had been enough odd
+circumstances about their acquaintance to rouse any ordinary man's
+interest, and just at present Spicca's strange hints and half
+confidences had excited an almost unbearable curiosity in his hearer.
+But Spicca did not seem inclined to satisfy it any further.
+
+One or two points, at least, were made clear. Maria Consuelo was not
+insane, as the maid had pretended. Her marriage with the deceased
+Aranjuez had been a marriage only in name, if it had even amounted to
+that. Finally, it was evident that she stood in some very near relation
+to Spicca and that neither she nor he wished the fact to be known. To
+all appearance they had carefully avoided meeting during the preceding
+winter, and no one in society was aware that they were even acquainted.
+Orsino recalled more than one occasion when each had been mentioned in
+the presence of the other. He had a good memory and he remembered that
+a scarcely perceptible change had taken place in the manner or
+conversation of the one who heard the other's name. It even seemed to
+him that at such moments Maria Consuelo had shown an infinitesimal
+resentment, whereas Spicca had faintly exhibited something more like
+impatience. If this were true, it argued that Spicca was more friendly
+to Maria Consuelo than she was to him. Yet on this particular evening
+Spicca had spoken somewhat bitterly of her--but then, Spicca was always
+bitter. His last remark was to the effect that she was eccentric. After
+a long silence, during which Orsino hoped that his friend would say
+something more, he took up the point.
+
+"I wish I knew what you meant by eccentric," he said. "I had the
+advantage of seeing Madame d'Aranjuez frequently, and I did not notice
+any eccentricity about her."
+
+"Ah--perhaps you are not observant. Or perhaps, as you say, we do not
+mean the same thing."
+
+"That is why I would like to hear your definition," observed Orsino.
+
+"The world is mad on the subject of definitions," answered Spicca. "It
+is more blessed to define than to be defined. It is a pleasant thing to
+say to one's enemy, 'Sir, you are a scoundrel.' But when your enemy says
+the same thing to you, you kill him without hesitation or regret--which
+proves, I suppose, that you are not pleased with his definition of you.
+You see definition, after all, is a matter of taste. So, as our tastes
+might not agree, I would rather not define anything this evening. I
+believe I have finished that flask. Let us take our coffee. We can
+define that beforehand, for we know by daily experience how diabolically
+bad it is."
+
+Orsino saw that Spicca meant to lead the conversation away in another
+direction.
+
+"May I ask you one serious question?" he inquired, leaning forward.
+
+"With a little ingenuity you may even ask me a dozen, all equally
+serious, my dear Orsino. But I cannot promise to answer all or any
+particular one. I am not omniscient, you know."
+
+"My question is this. I have no sort of right to ask it. I know that.
+Are you nearly related to Madame d'Aranjuez?"
+
+Spicca looked curiously at him.
+
+"Would the information be of any use to you?" he asked. "Should I be
+doing you a service in telling you that we are, or are not related?"
+
+"Frankly, no," answered Orsino, meeting the steady glance without
+wavering.
+
+"Then I do not see any reason whatever for telling you the truth,"
+returned Spicca quietly. "But I will give you a piece of general
+information. If harm comes to that lady through any man whomsoever, I
+will certainly kill him, even if I have to be carried upon the ground."
+
+There was no mistaking the tone in which the threat was uttered. Spicca
+meant what he said, though not one syllable was spoken louder than
+another. In his mouth the words had a terrific force, and told Orsino
+more of the man's true nature than he had learnt in years. Orsino was
+not easily impressed, and was certainly not timid, morally or
+physically; moreover he was in the prime of youth and not less skilful
+than other men in the use of weapons. But he felt at that moment that he
+would infinitely rather attack a regiment of artillery single-handed
+than be called upon to measure swords with the cadaverous old invalid
+who sat on the other side of the table.
+
+"It is not in my power to do any harm to Madame d'Aranjuez," he answered
+proudly enough, "and you ought to know that if it were, it could not
+possibly be in my intention. Therefore your threat is not intended for
+me."
+
+"Very good, Orsino. Your father would have answered like that, and you
+mean what you say. If I were young I think that you and I should be
+friends. Fortunately for you there is a matter of forty years'
+difference between our ages, so that you escape the infliction of such
+a nuisance as my friendship. You must find it bad enough to have to put
+up with my company."
+
+"Do not talk like that," answered Orsino. "The world is not all
+vinegar."
+
+"Well, well--you will find out what the world is in time. And perhaps
+you will find out many other things which you want to know. I must be
+going, for I have letters to write. Checco! My bill."
+
+Five minutes later they parted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Although Orsino's character was developing quickly in the new
+circumstances which he had created for himself, he was not of an age to
+be continually on his guard against passing impressions; still less
+could it be expected that he should be hardened against them by
+experience, as many men are by nature. His conversation with Spicca, and
+Spicca's own behaviour while it lasted, produced a decided effect upon
+the current of his thoughts, and he was surprised to find himself
+thinking more often and more seriously of Maria Consuelo than during the
+months which had succeeded her departure from Rome. Spicca's words had
+acted indirectly upon his mind. Much that the old man had said was
+calculated to rouse Orsino's curiosity, but Orsino was not naturally
+curious and though he felt that it would be very interesting to know
+Maria Consuelo's story, the chief result of the Count's half
+confidential utterances was to recall the lady herself very vividly to
+his recollection.
+
+At first his memory merely brought back the endless details of his
+acquaintance with her, which had formed the central feature of the first
+season he had spent without interruption in Rome and in society. He was
+surprised at the extreme precision of the pictures evoked, and took
+pleasure in calling them up when he was alone and unoccupied. The events
+themselves had not, perhaps, been all agreeable, yet there was not one
+which it did not give him some pleasant sensation to remember. There was
+a little sadness in some of them, and more than once the sadness was
+mingled with something of humiliation. Yet even this last was bearable.
+Though he did not realise it, he was quite unable to think of Maria
+Consuelo without feeling some passing touch of happiness at the thought,
+for happiness can live with sadness when it is the greater of the two.
+He had no desire to analyse these sensations. Indeed the idea did not
+enter his mind that they were worth analysing. His intelligence was
+better employed with his work, and his reflexions concerning Maria
+Consuelo chiefly occupied his hours of rest.
+
+The days passed quickly at first and then, as September came they seemed
+longer, instead of shorter. He was beginning to wish that the winter
+would come, that he might again see the woman of whom he was continually
+thinking. More than once he thought of writing to her, for he had the
+address which the maid had given him--an address in Paris which said
+nothing, a mere number with the name of a street. He wondered whether
+she would answer him, and when he had reached the self-satisfying
+conviction that she would, he at last wrote a letter, such as any person
+might write to another. He told her of the weather, of the dulness of
+Rome, of his hope that she would return early in the season, and of his
+own daily occupations. It was a simply expressed, natural and not at all
+emotional epistle, not at all like that of a man in the least degree in
+love with his correspondent, but Orsino felt an odd sensation of
+pleasure in writing it and was surprised by a little thrill of happiness
+as he posted it with his own hand.
+
+He did not forget the letter when he had sent it, either, as one forgets
+the uninteresting letters one is obliged to write out of civility. He
+hoped for an answer. Even if she were in Paris, Maria Consuelo might
+not, and probably would not, reply by return of post. And it was not
+probable that she would be in town at the beginning of September. Orsino
+calculated the time necessary to forward the letter from Paris to the
+most distant part of frequented Europe, allowed her three days for
+answering and three days more for her letter to reach him. The interval
+elapsed, but nothing came. Then he was irritated, and at last he became
+anxious. Either something had happened to Maria Consuelo, or he had
+somehow unconsciously offended her by what he had written. He had no
+copy of the letter and could not recall a single phrase which could have
+displeased her, but he feared lest something might have crept into it
+which she might misinterpret. But this idea was too absurd to be tenable
+for long, and the conviction grew upon him that she must be ill or in
+some great trouble. He was amazed at his own anxiety.
+
+Three weeks had gone by since he had written, and yet no word of reply
+had reached him. Then he sought out Spicca and asked him boldly whether
+anything had happened to Maria Consuelo, explaining that he had written
+to her and had got no answer. Spicca looked at him curiously for a
+moment.
+
+"Nothing has happened to her, as far as I am aware," he said, almost
+immediately. "I saw her this morning."
+
+"This morning?" Orsino was surprised almost out of words.
+
+"Yes. She is here, looking for an apartment in which to spend the
+winter."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+Spicca named the hotel, adding that Orsino would probably find her at
+home during the hot hours of the afternoon.
+
+"Has she been here long?" asked the young man.
+
+"Three days."
+
+"I will go and see her at once. I may be useful to her in finding an
+apartment."
+
+"That would be very kind of you," observed Spicca, glancing at him
+rather thoughtfully.
+
+On the following afternoon, Orsino presented himself at the hotel and
+asked for Madame d'Aranjuez. She received him in a room not very
+different from the one of which she had had made her sitting-room during
+the winter. As always, one or two new books and the mysterious silver
+paper cutter were the only objects of her own which were visible. Orsino
+hardly noticed the fact, however, for she was already in the room when
+he entered, and his eyes met hers at once.
+
+He fancied that she looked less strong than formerly, but the heat was
+great and might easily account for her pallor. Her eyes were deeper, and
+their tawny colour seemed darker. Her hand was cold.
+
+She smiled faintly as she met Orsino, but said nothing and sat down at a
+distance from the windows.
+
+"I only heard last night that you were in Rome," he said.
+
+"And you came at once to see me. Thanks. How did you find it out?"
+
+"Spicca told me. I had asked him for news of you."
+
+"Why him?" inquired Maria Consuelo with some curiosity.
+
+"Because I fancied he might know," answered Orsino passing lightly over
+the question. He did not wish even Maria Consuelo to guess that Spicca
+had spoken of her to him. "The reason why I was anxious about you was
+that I had written you a letter. I wrote some weeks ago to your address
+in Paris and got no answer."
+
+"You wrote?" Maria Consuelo seemed surprised. "I have not been in Paris.
+Who gave you the address? What was it?"
+
+Orsino named the street and the number.
+
+"I once lived there a short time, two years ago. Who gave you the
+address? Not Count Spicca?"
+
+"No."
+
+Orsino hesitated to say more. He did not like to admit that he had
+received the address from Maria Consuelo's maid, and it might seem
+incredible that the woman should have given the information unasked. At
+the same time the fact that the address was to all intents and purposes
+a false one tallied with the maid's spontaneous statement in regard to
+her mistress's mental alienation.
+
+"Why will you not tell me?" asked Maria Consuelo.
+
+"The answer involves a question which does not concern me. The address
+was evidently intended to deceive me. The person who gave it attempted
+to deceive me about a far graver matter, too. Let us say no more about
+it. Of course you never got the letter?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+A short silence followed which Orsino felt to be rather awkward. Maria
+Consuelo looked at him suddenly.
+
+"Did my maid tell you?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--since you ask me. She met me in the corridor after my last visit
+and thrust the address upon me."
+
+"I thought so," said Maria Consuelo.
+
+"You have suspected her before?"
+
+"What was the other deception?"
+
+"That is a more serious matter. The woman is your trusted servant. At
+least you must have trusted her when you took her--"
+
+"That does not follow. What did she try to make you believe?"
+
+"It is hard to tell you. For all I know, she may have been
+instructed--you may have instructed her yourself. One stumbles upon odd
+things in life, sometimes."
+
+"You called yourself my friend once, Don Orsino."
+
+"If you will let me, I will call myself so still."
+
+"Then, in the name of friendship, tell me what the woman said!" Maria
+Consuelo spoke with sudden energy, touching his arm quickly with an
+unconscious gesture.
+
+"Will you believe me?"
+
+"Are you accustomed to being doubted, that you ask?"
+
+"No. But this thing is very strange."
+
+"Do not keep me waiting--it hurts me!"
+
+"The woman stopped me as I was going away. I had never spoken to her.
+She knew my name. She told me that you were--how shall I say?--mentally
+deranged."
+
+Maria Consuelo started and turned very pale.
+
+"She told you that I was mad?" Her voice sank to a whisper.
+
+"That is what she said."
+
+Orsino watched her narrowly. She evidently believed him. Then she sank
+back in her chair with a stifled cry of horror, covering her eyes with
+her hands.
+
+"And you might have believed it!" she exclaimed. "You might really have
+believed it--you!"
+
+The cry came from her heart and would have shown Orsino what weight she
+still attached to his opinion had he not himself been too suddenly and
+deeply interested in the principal question to pay attention to details.
+
+"She made the statement very clearly," he said. "What could have been
+her object in the lie?"
+
+"What object? Ah--if I knew that--"
+
+Maria Consuelo rose and paced the room, her head bent and her hands
+nervously clasping and unclasping. Orsino stood by the empty fireplace,
+watching her.
+
+"You will send the woman away of course?" he said, in a questioning
+tone.
+
+But she shook her head and her anxiety seemed to increase.
+
+"Is it possible that you will submit to such a thing from a servant?" he
+asked in astonishment.
+
+"I have submitted to much," she answered in a low voice.
+
+"The inevitable, of course. But to keep a maid whom you can turn away at
+any moment--"
+
+"Yes--but can I?" She stopped and looked at him. "Oh, if I only
+could--if you knew how I hate the woman--"
+
+"But then--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you are in some way in her power, so that
+you are bound to keep her always?"
+
+Maria Consuelo hesitated a moment.
+
+"Are you in her power?" asked Orsino a second time. He did not like the
+idea and his black brows bent themselves rather angrily.
+
+"No--not directly. She is imposed upon me."
+
+"By circumstances?"
+
+"No, again. By a person who has the power to impose much upon me--but
+this! Oh this is almost too much! To be called mad!"
+
+"Then do not submit to it."
+
+Orsino spoke decisively, with a kind of authority which surprised
+himself. He was amazed and righteously angry at the situation so
+suddenly revealed to him, undefined as it was. He saw that he was
+touching a great trouble and his natural energy bid him lay violent
+hands on it and root it out if possible.
+
+For some minutes Maria Consuelo did not speak, but continued to pace the
+room, evidently in great anxiety. Then she stopped before him.
+
+"It is easy for you to say, 'do not submit,' when you do not
+understand," she said. "If you knew what my life is, you would look at
+this in another way. I must submit--I cannot do otherwise."
+
+"If you would tell me something more, I might help you," answered
+Orsino.
+
+"You?" She paused. "I believe you would, if you could," she added,
+thoughtfully.
+
+"You know that I would. Perhaps I can, as it is, in ignorance, if you
+will direct me."
+
+A sudden light gleamed in Maria Consuelo's eyes and then died away as
+quickly as it had come.
+
+"After all, what could you do?" she asked with a change of tone, as
+though she were somehow disappointed. "What could you do that others
+would not do as well, if they could, and with a better right?"
+
+"Unless you will tell me, how can I know?"
+
+"Yes--if I could tell you."
+
+She went and sat down in her former seat and Orsino took a chair beside
+her. He had expected to renew the acquaintance in a very different way,
+and that he should spend half an hour with Maria Consuelo in talking
+about apartments, about the heat and about the places she had visited.
+Instead, circumstances had made the conversation an intimate one full of
+an absorbing interest to both. Orsino found that he had forgotten much
+which pleased him strangely now that it was again brought before him. He
+had forgotten most of all, it seemed, that an unexplained sympathy
+attracted him to her, and her to him. He wondered at the strength of it,
+and found it hard to understand that last meeting with her in the
+spring.
+
+"Is there any way of helping you, without knowing your secret?" he asked
+in a low voice.
+
+"No. But I thank you for the wish."
+
+"Are you sure there is no way? Quite sure?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"May I say something that strikes me?"
+
+"Say anything you choose."
+
+"There is a plot against you. You seem to know it. Have you never
+thought of plotting on your side?"
+
+"I have no one to help me."
+
+"You have me, if you will take my help. And you have Spicca. You might
+do better, but you might do worse. Between us we might accomplish
+something."
+
+Maria Consuelo had started at Spicca's name. She seemed very nervous
+that day.
+
+"Do you know what you are saying?" she asked after a moment's thought.
+
+"Nothing that should offend you, at least."
+
+"No. But you are proposing that I should ally myself with the man of all
+others whom I have reason to hate."
+
+"You hate Spicca?" Orsino was passing from one surprise to another.
+
+"Whether I hate him or not, is another matter. I ought to."
+
+"At all events he does not hate you."
+
+"I know he does not. That makes it no easier for me. I could not accept
+his help."
+
+"All this is so mysterious that I do not know what to say," said Orsino,
+thoughtfully. "The fact remains, and it is bad enough. You need help
+urgently. You are in the power of a servant who tells your friends that
+you are insane and thrusts false addresses upon them, for purposes which
+I cannot explain."
+
+"Nor I either, though I may guess."
+
+"It is worse and worse. You cannot even be sure of the motives of this
+woman, though you know the person or persons by whom she is forced upon
+you. You cannot get rid of her yourself and you will not let any one
+else help you."
+
+"Not Count Spicca."
+
+"And yet I am sure that he would do much for you. Can you not even tell
+me why you hate him, or ought to hate him?"
+
+Maria Consuelo hesitated and looked into Orsino's eyes for a moment.
+
+"Can I trust you?" she asked.
+
+"Implicitly."
+
+"He killed my husband."
+
+Orsino uttered a low exclamation of horror. In the deep silence which
+followed he heard Maria Consuelo draw her breath once or twice sharply
+through her closed teeth, as though she were in great pain.
+
+"I do not wish it known," she said presently, in a changed voice. "I do
+not know why I told you."
+
+"You can trust me."
+
+"I must--since I have spoken."
+
+In the surprise caused by the startling confidence, Orsino suddenly felt
+that his capacity for sympathy had grown to great dimensions. If he had
+been a woman, the tears would have stood in his eyes. Being what he was,
+he felt them in his heart. It was clear that she had loved the dead man
+very dearly. In the light of this evident fact, it was hard to explain
+her conduct towards Orsino during the winter and especially at their
+last meeting.
+
+For a long time neither spoke again. Orsino, indeed, had nothing to say
+at first, for nothing he could say could reasonably be supposed to be of
+any use. He had learned the existence of something like a tragedy in
+Maria Consuelo's life, and he seemed to be learning the first lesson of
+friendship, which teaches sympathy. It was not an occasion for making
+insignificant phrases expressing his regret at her loss, and the
+language he needed in order to say what he meant was unfamiliar to his
+lips. He was silent, therefore, but his young face was grave and
+thoughtful, and his eyes sought hers from time to time as though trying
+to discover and forestall her wishes. At last she glanced at him
+quickly, then looked down, and at last spoke to him.
+
+"You will not make me regret having told you this--will you?" she asked.
+
+"No. I promise you that."
+
+So far as Orsino could understand the words meant very little. He was
+not very communicative, as a rule, and would certainly not tell what he
+had heard, so that the promise was easily given and easy to keep. If he
+did not break it, he did not see that she could have any further cause
+for regretting her confidence in him. Nevertheless, by way of reassuring
+her, he thought it best to repeat what he had said in different words.
+
+"You may be quite sure that whatever you choose to tell me is in safe
+keeping," he said. "And you may be sure, too, that if it is in my power
+to do you a service of any kind, you will find me ready, and more than
+ready, to help you."
+
+"Thank you," she answered, looking earnestly at him.
+
+"Whether the matter be small or great," he added, meeting her eyes.
+
+Perhaps she expected to find more curiosity on his part, and fancied
+that he would ask some further question. He did not understand the
+meaning of her look.
+
+"I believe you," she said at last. "I am too much in need of a friend to
+doubt you."
+
+"You have found one."
+
+"I do not know. I am not sure. There are other things--" she stopped
+suddenly and looked away.
+
+"What other things?"
+
+But Maria Consuelo did not answer. Orsino knew that she was thinking of
+all that had once passed between them. He wondered whether, if he led
+the way, she would press him as she had done at their last meeting. If
+she did, he wondered what he should say. He had been very cold then, far
+colder than he was now. He now felt drawn to her, as in the first days
+of their acquaintance. He felt always that he was on the point of
+understanding her, and yet that he was waiting, for something which
+should help him to pass that point.
+
+"What other things?" he asked, repeating his question. "Do you mean that
+there are reasons which may prevent me from being a good friend of
+yours?"
+
+"I am afraid there are. I do not know."
+
+"I think you are mistaken, Madame. Will you name some of those
+reasons--or even one?"
+
+Maria Consuelo did not answer at once. She glanced at him, looked down,
+and then her eyes met his again.
+
+"Do you think that you are the kind of man a woman chooses for her
+friend?" she asked at length, with a faint smile.
+
+"I have not thought of the matter--"
+
+"But you should--before offering your friendship."
+
+"Why? If I feel a sincere sympathy for your trouble, if I am--" he
+hesitated, weighing his words--"if I am personally attached to you, why
+can I not help you? I am honest, and in earnest. May I say as much as
+that of myself?"
+
+"I believe you are."
+
+"Then I cannot see that I am not the sort of man whom a woman might take
+for a friend when a better is not at hand."
+
+"And do you believe in friendship, Don Orsino?" asked Maria Consuelo
+quietly.
+
+"I have heard it said that it is not wise to disbelieve anything
+nowadays," answered Orsino.
+
+"True--and the word 'friend' has such a pretty sound!" She laughed, for
+the first time since he had entered the room.
+
+"Then it is you who are the unbeliever, Madame. Is not that a sign that
+you need no friend at all, and that your questions are not seriously
+meant?"
+
+"Perhaps. Who knows?"
+
+"Do you know, yourself?"
+
+"No." Again she laughed a little, and then grew suddenly grave.
+
+"I never knew a woman who needed a friend more urgently than you do,"
+said Orsino. "I do not in the least understand your position. The little
+you have told me makes it clear enough that there have been and still
+are unusual circumstances in your life. One thing I see. That woman whom
+you call your maid is forced upon you against your will, to watch you,
+and is privileged to tell lies about you which may do you a great
+injury. I do not ask why you are obliged to suffer her presence, but I
+see that you must, and I guess that you hate it. Would it be an act of
+friendship to free you from her or not?"
+
+"At present it would not be an act of friendship," answered Maria
+Consuelo, thoughtfully.
+
+"That is very strange. Do you mean to say that you submit voluntarily--"
+
+"The woman is a condition imposed upon me. I cannot tell you more."
+
+"And no friend, no friendly help can change the condition, I suppose."
+
+"I did not say that. But such help is beyond your power, Don Orsino,"
+she added turning towards him rather suddenly. "Let us not talk of this
+any more. Believe me, nothing can be done. You have sometimes acted
+strangely with me, but I really think you would help me if you could.
+Let that be the state of our acquaintance. You are willing, and I
+believe that you are. Nothing more. Let that be our compact. But you can
+perhaps help me in another way--a smaller way. I want a habitation of
+some kind for the winter, for I am tired of camping out in hotels. You
+who know your own city so well can name some person who will undertake
+the matter."
+
+"I know the very man," said Orsino promptly.
+
+"Will you write out the address for me?"
+
+"It is not necessary. I mean myself."
+
+"I could not let you take so much trouble," protested Maria Consuelo.
+
+But she accepted, nevertheless, after a little hesitation. For some time
+they discussed the relative advantages of the various habitable quarters
+of the city, both glad, perhaps, to find an almost indifferent subject
+of conversation, and both relatively happy merely in being together. The
+talk made one of those restful interludes which are so necessary, and
+often so hard to produce, between two people whose thoughts run upon a
+strong common interest, and who find it difficult to exchange half a
+dozen words without being led back to the absorbing topic.
+
+What had been said had produced a decided effect upon Orsino. He had
+come expecting to take up the acquaintance on a new footing, but ten
+minutes had not elapsed before he had found himself as much interested
+as ever in Maria Consuelo's personality, and far more interested in her
+life than he had ever been before. While talking with more or less
+indifference about the chances of securing a suitable apartment for the
+winter, Orsino listened with an odd sensation of pleasure to every tone
+of his companion's voice and watched every changing expression of the
+striking face. He wondered whether he were not perhaps destined to love
+her sincerely as he had already loved her in a boyish, capricious
+fashion which would no longer be natural to him now. But for the present
+he was sure that he did not love her, and that he desired nothing but
+her sympathy for himself, and to feel sympathy for her. Those were the
+words he used, and he did not explain them to his own intelligence in
+any very definite way. He was conscious, indeed, that they meant more
+than formerly, but the same was true of almost everything that came into
+his life, and he did not therefore attach any especial importance to the
+fact. He was altogether much more in earnest than when he had first met
+Maria Consuelo; he was capable of deeper feeling, of stronger
+determination and of more decided action in all matters, and though he
+did not say so to himself he was none the less aware of the change.
+
+"Shall we make an appointment for to-morrow?" he asked, after they had
+been talking some time.
+
+"Yes--but there is one thing I wanted to ask you--"
+
+"What is that?" inquired Orsino, seeing that she hesitated.
+
+The faint colour rose in her cheeks, but she looked straight into his
+eyes, with a kind of fearless expression, as though she were facing a
+danger.
+
+"Tell me," she said, "in Rome, where everything is known and every one
+talks so much, will it not be thought strange that you and I should be
+driving about together, looking for a house for me? Tell me the truth."
+
+"What can people say?" asked Orsino.
+
+"Many things. Will they say them?"
+
+"If they do, I can make them stop talking."
+
+"That means that they will talk, does it not? Would you like that?"
+
+There was a sudden change in her face, with a look of doubt and anxious
+perplexity. Orsino saw it and felt that she was putting him upon his
+honour, and that whatever the doubt might be it had nothing to do with
+her trust in him. Six months earlier he would not have hesitated to
+demonstrate that her fears were empty--but he felt that six months
+earlier she might not have yielded to his reasoning. It was instinctive,
+but his instinct was not mistaken.
+
+"I think you are right," he said slowly. "We should not do it. I will
+send my architect with you."
+
+There was enough regret in the tone to show that he was making a
+considerable sacrifice. A little delicacy means more when it comes from
+a strong man, than when it is the natural expression of an over-refined
+and somewhat effeminate character. And Orsino was rapidly developing a
+strength of which other people were conscious. Maria Consuelo was
+pleased, though she, too, was perhaps sorry to give up the projected
+plan.
+
+"After all," she said, thoughtlessly, "you can come and see me here,
+if--"
+
+She stopped and blushed again, more deeply this time; but she turned her
+face away and in the half light the change of colour was hardly
+noticeable.
+
+"You were going to say 'if you care to see me,'" said Orsino. "I am glad
+you did not say it. It would not have been kind."
+
+"Yes--I was going to say that," she answered quietly. "But I will not."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Why do you thank me?"
+
+"For not hurting me."
+
+"Do you think that I would hurt you willingly, in any way?"
+
+"I would rather not think so. You did once."
+
+The words slipped from his lips almost before he had time to realise
+what they meant. He was thinking of the night when she had drawn up the
+carriage window, leaving him standing on the pavement, and of her
+repeated refusals to see him afterwards. It seemed long ago, and the
+hurt had not really been so sharp as he now fancied that it must have
+been, judging from what he now felt. She looked at him quickly as though
+wondering what he would say next.
+
+"I never meant to be unkind," she said. "I have often asked myself
+whether you could say as much."
+
+It was Orsino's turn to change colour. He was young enough for that,
+and the blood rose slowly in his dark cheeks. He thought again of their
+last meeting, and of what he had heard as he shut the door after him on
+that day. Perhaps he would have spoken, but Maria Consuelo was sorry for
+what she had said, and a little ashamed of her weakness, as indeed she
+had some cause to be, and she immediately turned back to a former point
+of the conversation, not too far removed from what had last been said.
+
+"You see," said she, "I was right to ask you whether people would talk.
+And I am grateful to you for telling me the truth. It is a first proof
+of friendship--of something better than our old relations. Will you send
+me your architect to-morrow, since you are so kind as to offer his
+help?"
+
+After arranging for the hour of meeting Orsino rose to take his leave.
+
+"May I come to-morrow?" he asked. "People will not talk about that," he
+added with a smile.
+
+"You can ask for me. I may be out. If I am at home, I shall be glad to
+see you."
+
+She spoke coldly, and Orsino saw that she was looking over his shoulder.
+He turned instinctively and saw that the door was open and Spicca was
+standing just outside, looking in and apparently waiting for a word from
+Maria Consuelo before entering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+As Orsino had no reason whatever for avoiding Spicca he naturally waited
+a moment instead of leaving the room immediately. He looked at the old
+man with a new interest as the latter came forward. He had never seen
+and probably would never see again a man taking the hand of a woman
+whose husband he had destroyed. He stood a little back and Spicca
+passed him as he met Maria Consuelo. Orsino watched the faces of both.
+
+Madame d'Aranjuez put out her hand mechanically and with evident
+reluctance, and Orsino guessed that but for his own presence she would
+not have given it. The expression in her face changed rapidly from that
+which had been there when they had been alone, hardening very quickly
+until it reminded Orsino of a certain mask of the Medusa which had once
+made an impression upon his imagination. Her eyes were fixed and the
+pupils grew small while the singular golden yellow colour of the iris
+flashed disagreeably. She did not bend her head as she silently gave her
+hand.
+
+Spicca, too, seemed momentarily changed. He was as pale and thin as
+ever, but his face softened oddly; certain lines which contributed to
+his usually bitter and sceptical expression disappeared, while others
+became visible which changed his look completely. He bowed with more
+deference than he affected with other women, and Orsino fancied that he
+would have held Maria Consuelo's hand a moment longer, if she had not
+withdrawn it as soon as it had touched his.
+
+If Orsino had not already known that Spicca often saw her, he would have
+been amazed at the count's visit, considering what she had said of the
+man. As it was, he wondered what power Spicca had over her to oblige her
+to receive him, and he wondered in vain. The conclusion which forced
+itself before him was that Spicca was the person who imposed the serving
+woman upon Maria Consuelo. But her behaviour towards him, on the other
+hand, was not that of a person obliged by circumstances to submit to the
+caprices and dictation of another. Judging by the appearance of the two,
+it seemed more probable that the power was on the other side, and might
+be used mercilessly on occasion.
+
+"I hope I am not disturbing your plans," said Spicca, in a tone which
+was almost humble, and very unlike his usual voice. "Were you going out
+together?"
+
+He shook hands with Orsino, avoiding his glance, as the young man
+thought.
+
+"No," answered Maria Consuelo briefly. "I was not going out."
+
+"I am just going away," said Orsino by way of explanation, and he made
+as though he would take his leave.
+
+"Do not go yet," said Maria Consuelo. Her look made the words
+imperative.
+
+Spicca glanced from one to the other with a sort of submissive protest,
+and then all three sat down. Orsino wondered what part he was expected
+to play in the trio, and wished himself away in spite of the interest he
+felt in the situation.
+
+Maria Consuelo began to talk in a careless tone which reminded him of
+his first meeting with her in Gouache's studio. She told Spicca that
+Orsino had promised her his architect as a guide in her search for a
+lodging.
+
+"What sort of person is he?" inquired Spicca, evidently for the sake of
+making conversation.
+
+"Contini is a man of business," Orsino answered. "An odd fellow, full of
+talent, and a musical genius. One would not expect very much of him at
+first, but he will do all that Madame d'Aranjuez needs."
+
+"Otherwise you would not have recommended him, I suppose," said Spicca.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Orsino, looking at him.
+
+"You must know, Madame," said Spicca, "that Don Orsino is an excellent
+judge of men."
+
+He emphasised the last word in a way that seemed unnecessary. Maria
+Consuelo had recovered all her equanimity and laughed carelessly.
+
+"How you say that!" she exclaimed. "Is it a warning?"
+
+"Against what?" asked Orsino.
+
+"Probably against you," she said. "Count Spicca likes to throw out vague
+hints--but I will do him the credit to say that they generally mean
+something." She added the last words rather scornfully.
+
+An expression of pain passed over the old man's face. But he said
+nothing, though it was not like him to pass by a challenge of the kind.
+Without in the least understanding the reason of the sensation, Orsino
+felt sorry for him.
+
+"Among men, Count Spicca's opinion is worth having," he said quietly.
+
+Maria Consuelo looked at him in some surprise. The phrase sounded like a
+rebuke, and her eyes betrayed her annoyance.
+
+"How delightful it is to hear one man defend another!" she laughed.
+
+"I fancy Count Spicca does not stand much in need of defence," replied
+Orsino, without changing his tone.
+
+"He himself is the best judge of that."
+
+Spicca raised his weary eyes to hers and looked at her for a moment,
+before he answered.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I think I am the best judge. But I am not accustomed to
+being defended, least of all against you, Madame. The sensation is a new
+one."
+
+Orsino felt himself out of place. He was more warmly attached to Spicca
+than he knew, and though he was at that time not far removed from loving
+Maria Consuelo, her tone in speaking to the old man, which said far more
+than her words, jarred upon him, and he could not help taking his
+friend's part. On the other hand the ugly truth that Spicca had caused
+the death of Aranjuez more than justified Maria Consuelo in her hatred.
+Behind all, there was evidently some good reason why Spicca came to see
+her, and there was some bond between the two which made it impossible
+for her to refuse his visits. It was clear too, that though she hated
+him he felt some kind of strong affection for her. In her presence he
+was very unlike his daily self.
+
+Again Orsino moved and looked at her, as though asking her permission to
+go away. But she refused it with an imperative gesture and a look of
+annoyance. She evidently did not wish to be left alone with the old
+man. Without paying any further attention to the latter she began to
+talk to Orsino. She took no trouble to conceal what she felt and the
+impression grew upon Orsino that Spicca would have gone away after a
+quarter of an hour, if he had not either possessed a sort of right to
+stay or if he had not had some important object in view in remaining.
+
+"I suppose there is nothing to do in Rome at this time of year," she
+said.
+
+Orsino told her that there was absolutely nothing to do. Not a theatre
+was open, not a friend was in town. Rome was a wilderness. Rome was an
+amphitheatre on a day when there was no performance, when the lions were
+asleep, the gladiators drinking, and the martyrs unoccupied. He tried to
+say something amusing and found it hard.
+
+Spicca was very patient, but evidently determined to outstay Orsino.
+From time to time he made a remark, to which Maria Consuelo paid very
+little attention if she took any notice of it at all. Orsino could not
+make up his mind whether to stay or to go. The latter course would
+evidently displease Maria Consuelo, whereas by remaining he was clearly
+annoying Spicca and was perhaps causing him pain. It was a nice
+question, and while trying to make conversation he weighed the arguments
+in his mind. Strange to say he decided in favour of Spicca. The decision
+was to some extent an index of the state of his feelings towards Madame
+d'Aranjuez. If he had been quite in love with her, he would have stayed.
+If he had wished to make her love him, he would have stayed also. As it
+was, his friendship for the old count went before other considerations.
+At the same time he hoped to manage matters so as not to incur Maria
+Consuelo's displeasure. He found it harder than he had expected. After
+he had made up his mind, he continued to talk during three or four
+minutes and then made his excuse.
+
+"I must be going," he said quietly. "I have a number of things to do
+before night, and I must see Contini in order to give him time to make
+a list of apartments for you to see to-morrow."
+
+He took his hat and rose. He was not prepared for Maria Consuelo's
+answer.
+
+"I asked you to stay," she said, coldly and very distinctly.
+
+Spicca did not allow his expression to change. Orsino stared at her.
+
+"I am very sorry, Madame, but there are many reasons which oblige me to
+disobey you."
+
+Maria Consuelo bit her lip and her eyes gleamed angrily. She glanced at
+Spicca as though hoping that he would go away with Orsino. But he did
+not move. It was more and more clear that he had a right to stay if he
+pleased. Orsino was already bowing before her. Instead of giving her
+hand she rose quickly and led him towards the door. He opened it and
+they stood together on the threshold.
+
+"Is this the way you help me?" she asked, almost fiercely, though in a
+whisper.
+
+"Why do you receive him at all?" he inquired, instead of answering.
+
+"Because I cannot refuse."
+
+"But you might send him away?"
+
+She hesitated, and looked into his eyes.
+
+"Shall I?"
+
+"If you wish to be alone--and if you can. It is no affair of mine."
+
+She turned swiftly, leaving Orsino standing in the door and went to
+Spicca's side. He had risen when she rose and was standing at the other
+side of the room, watching.
+
+"I have a bad headache," she said coldly. "You will forgive me if I ask
+you to go with Don Orsino."
+
+"A lady's invitation to leave her house, Madame, is the only one which a
+man cannot refuse," said Spicca gravely.
+
+He bowed and followed Orsino out of the room, closing the door behind
+him. The scene had produced a very disagreeable impression upon Orsino.
+Had he not known the worst part of the secret and consequently
+understood what good cause Maria Consuelo had for not wishing to be
+alone with Spicca, he would have been utterly revolted and for ever
+repelled by her brutality. No other word could express adequately her
+conduct towards the count. Even knowing what he did, he wished that she
+had controlled her temper better and he was more than ever sorry for
+Spicca. It did not even cross his mind that the latter might have
+intentionally provoked Aranjuez and killed him purposely. He felt
+somehow that Spicca was in a measure the injured party and must have
+been in that position from the beginning, whatever the strange story
+might be. As the two descended the steps together Orsino glanced at his
+companion's pale, drawn features and was sure that the man was to be
+pitied. It was almost a womanly instinct, far too delicate for such a
+hardy nature, and dependent perhaps upon that sudden opening of his
+sympathies which resulted from meeting Maria Consuelo. I think that, on
+the whole, in such cases, though the woman's character may be formed by
+intimacy with man's, with apparent results, the impression upon the man
+is momentarily deeper, as the woman's gentler instincts are in a way
+reflected in his heart.
+
+Spicca recovered himself quickly, however. He took out his case and
+offered Orsino a cigarette.
+
+"So you have renewed your acquaintance," he said quietly.
+
+"Yes--under rather odd circumstances," answered Orsino. "I feel as
+though I owed you an apology, Count, and yet I do not see what there is
+to apologise for. I tried to go away more than once."
+
+"You cannot possibly make excuses to me for Madame d'Aranjuez's
+peculiarities, my friend. Besides, I admit that she has a right to treat
+me as she pleases. That does not prevent me from going to see her every
+day."
+
+"You must have strong reasons for bearing such treatment."
+
+"I have," answered Spicca thoughtfully and sadly. "Very strong reasons.
+I will tell you one of those which brought me to-day. I wished to see
+you two together."
+
+Orsino stopped in his walk, after the manner of Italians, and he looked
+at Spicca. He was hot tempered when provoked, and he might have resented
+the speech if it had come from any other man. But he spoke quietly.
+
+"Why do you wish to see us together?" he asked.
+
+"Because I am foolish enough to think sometimes that you suit one
+another, and might love one another."
+
+Probably nothing which Spicca could have said could have surprised
+Orsino more than such a plain statement. He grew suspicious at once, but
+Spicca's look was that of a man in earnest.
+
+"I do not think I understand you," answered Orsino. "But I think you are
+touching a subject which is better left alone."
+
+"I think not," returned Spicca unmoved.
+
+"Then let us agree to differ," said Orsino a little more warmly.
+
+"We cannot do that. I am in a position to make you agree with me, and I
+will. I am responsible for that lady's happiness. I am responsible
+before God and man."
+
+Something in the words made a deep impression upon Orsino. He had never
+heard Spicca use anything approaching to solemn language before. He knew
+at least one part of the meaning which showed Spicca's remorse for
+having killed Aranjuez, and he knew that the old man meant what he said,
+and meant it from his heart.
+
+"Do you understand me now?" asked Spicca, slowly inhaling the smoke of
+his cigarette.
+
+"Not altogether. If you desire the happiness of Madame d'Aranjuez why do
+you wish us to fall in love with each other? It strikes me that--" he
+stopped.
+
+"Because I wish you would marry her."
+
+"Marry her!" Orsino had not thought of that, and his words expressed a
+surprise which was not calculated to please Spicca.
+
+The old man's weary eyes suddenly grew keen and fierce and Orsino could
+hardly meet their look. Spicca's nervous fingers seized the young man's
+tough arm and closed upon it with surprising force.
+
+"I would advise you to think of that possibility before making any more
+visits," he said, his weak voice suddenly clearing. "We were talking
+together a few weeks ago. Do you remember what I said I would do to any
+man by whom harm comes to her? Yes, you remember well enough. I know
+what you answered, and I daresay you meant it. But I was in earnest,
+too."
+
+"I think you are threatening me, Count Spicca," said Orsino, flushing
+slowly but meeting the other's look with unflinching coolness.
+
+"No. I am not. And I will not let you quarrel with me, either, Orsino. I
+have a right to say this to you where she is concerned--a right you do
+not dream of. You cannot quarrel about that."
+
+Orsino did not answer at once. He saw that Spicca was very much in
+earnest, and was surprised that his manner now should be less calm and
+collected than on the occasion of their previous conversation, when the
+count had taken enough wine to turn the heads of most men. He did not
+doubt in the least the statement Spicca made. It agreed exactly with
+what Maria Consuelo herself had said of him. And the statement certainly
+changed the face of the situation. Orsino admitted to himself that he
+had never before thought of marrying Madame d'Aranjuez. He had not even
+taken into consideration the consequences of loving her and of being
+loved by her in return. The moment he thought of a possible marriage as
+the result of such a mutual attachment, he realised the enormous
+difficulties which stood in the way of such a union, and his first
+impulse was to give up visiting her altogether. What Spicca said was at
+once reasonable and unreasonable. Maria Consuelo's husband was dead, and
+she doubtless expected to marry again. Orsino had no right to stand in
+the way of others who might present themselves as suitors. But it was
+beyond belief that Spicca should expect Orsino to marry her himself,
+knowing Rome and the Romans as he did.
+
+The two had been standing still in the shade. Orsino began to walk
+forward again before he spoke. Something in his own reflexions shocked
+him. He did not like to think that an impassable social barrier existed
+between Maria Consuelo and himself. Yet, in his total ignorance of her
+origin and previous life the stories which had been circulated about her
+recalled themselves with unpleasant distinctness. Nothing that Spicca
+had said when they had dined together had made the matter any clearer,
+though the assurance that the deceased Aranjuez had come to his end by
+Spicca's instrumentality sufficiently contradicted the worst, if also
+the least credible, point in the tales which had been repeated by the
+gossips early in the previous winter. All the rest belonged entirely to
+the category of the unknown. Yet Spicca spoke seriously of a possible
+marriage and had gone to the length of wishing that it might be brought
+about. At last Orsino spoke.
+
+"You say that you have a right to say what you have said," he began. "In
+that case I think I have a right to ask a question which you ought to
+answer. You talk of my marrying Madame d'Aranjuez. You ought to tell me
+whether that is possible."
+
+"Possible?" cried Spicca almost angrily. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean this. You know us all, as you know me. You know the enormous
+prejudices in which we are brought up. You know perfectly well that
+although I am ready to laugh at some of them, there are others at which
+I do not laugh. Yet you refused to tell me who Madame d'Aranjuez was,
+when I asked you, the other day. I do not even know her father's name,
+much less her mother's--"
+
+"No," answered Spicca. "That is quite true, and I see no necessity for
+telling you either. But, as you say, you have some right to ask. I will
+tell you this much. There is nothing in the circumstances of her birth
+which could hinder her marriage into any honourable family. Does that
+satisfy you?"
+
+Orsino saw that whether he were satisfied or not he was to get no
+further information for the present. He might believe Spicca's statement
+or not, as he pleased, but he knew that whatever the peculiarities of
+the melancholy old duellist's character might be, he never took the
+trouble to invent a falsehood and was as ready as ever to support his
+words. On this occasion no one could have doubted him, for there was an
+unusual ring of sincere feeling in what he said. Orsino could not help
+wondering what the tie between him and Madame d'Aranjuez could be, for
+it evidently had the power to make Spicca submit without complaint to
+something worse than ordinary unkindness and to make him defend on all
+occasions the name and character of the woman who treated him so
+harshly. It must be a very close bond, Orsino thought. Spicca acted very
+much like a man who loves very sincerely and quite hopelessly. There was
+something very sad in the idea that he perhaps loved Maria Consuelo, at
+his age, broken down as he was, and old before his time. The contrast
+between them was so great that it must have been grotesque if it had not
+been pathetic.
+
+Little more passed between the two men on that day, before they
+separated. To Spicca, Orsino seemed indifferent, and the older man's
+reticence after his sudden outburst did not tend to prolong the meeting.
+
+Orsino went in search of Contini and explained what was needed of him.
+He was to make a brief list of desirable apartments to let and was to
+accompany Madame d'Aranjuez on the following morning in order to see
+them.
+
+Contini was delighted and set out about the work at once. Perhaps he
+secretly hoped that the lady might be induced to take a part of one of
+the new houses, but the idea had nothing to do with his satisfaction. He
+was to spend several hours in the sole society of a lady, of a genuine
+lady who was, moreover, young and beautiful. He read the little morning
+paper too assiduously not to have noticed the name and pondered over the
+descriptions of Madame d'Aranjuez on the many occasions when she had
+been mentioned by the reporters during the previous year. He was too
+young and too thoroughly Italian not to appreciate the good fortune
+which now fell into his way, and he promised himself a morning of
+uninterrupted enjoyment. He wondered whether the lady could be induced,
+by excessive fatigue and thirst to accept a water ice at Nazzari's, and
+he planned his list of apartments in such a way as to bring her to the
+neighbourhood of the Piazza di Spagna at an hour when the proposition,
+might seem most agreeable and natural.
+
+Orsino stayed in the office during the hot September morning, busying
+himself with the endless details of which he was now master, and
+thinking from time to time of Maria Consuelo. He intended to go and see
+her in the afternoon, and he, like Contini, planned what he should do
+and say. But his plans were all unsatisfactory, and once he found
+himself staring at the blank wall opposite his table in a state of idle
+abstraction long unfamiliar to him.
+
+Soon after twelve o'clock, Contini came back, hot and radiant. Maria
+Consuelo had refused the water ice, but the charm of her manner had
+repaid the architect for the disappointment. Orsino asked whether she
+had decided upon any dwelling.
+
+"She has taken the apartment in the Palazzo Barberini," answered
+Contini. "I suppose she will bring her family in the autumn."
+
+"Her family? She has none. She is alone."
+
+"Alone in that place! How rich she must be!" Contini found the remains
+of a cigar somewhere and lighted it thoughtfully.
+
+"I do not know whether she is rich or not," said Orsino. "I never
+thought about it."
+
+He began to work at his books again, while Contini sat down and fanned
+himself with a bundle of papers.
+
+"She admires you very much, Don Orsino," said the latter, after a pause.
+Orsino looked up sharply.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" he asked.
+
+"I mean that she talked of nothing but you, and in the most flattering
+way."
+
+In the oddly close intimacy which had grown up between the two men it
+did not seem strange that Orsino should smile at speeches which he would
+not have liked if they had come from any one but the poor architect.
+
+"What did she say?" he asked with idle curiosity.
+
+"She said it was wonderful to think what you had done. That of all the
+Roman princes you were the only one who had energy and character enough
+to throw over the old prejudices and take an occupation. That it was all
+the more creditable because you had done it from moral reasons and not
+out of necessity or love of money. And she said a great many other
+things of the same kind."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Orsino, looking at the wall opposite.
+
+"It is a pity she is a widow," observed Contini.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"She would make such a beautiful princess."
+
+"You must be mad, Contini!" exclaimed Orsino, half-pleased and
+half-irritated. "Do not talk of such follies."
+
+"All well! Forgive me," answered the architect a little humbly. "I am
+not you, you know, and my head is not yours--nor my name--nor my heart
+either."
+
+Contini sighed, puffed at his cigar and took up some papers. He was
+already a little in love with Maria Consuelo, and the idea that any man
+might marry her if he pleased, but would not, was incomprehensible to
+him.
+
+The day wore on. Orsino finished his work as thoroughly as though he
+had been a paid clerk, put everything in order and went away. Late in
+the afternoon he went to see Maria Consuelo. He knew that she would
+usually be already out at that hour, and he fancied that he was leaving
+something to chance in the matter of finding her, though an
+unacknowledged instinct told him that she would stay at home after the
+fatigue of the morning.
+
+"We shall not be interrupted by Count Spicca to-day," she said, as he
+sat down beside her.
+
+In spite of what he knew, the hard tone of her voice roused again in
+Orsino that feeling of pity for the old man which he had felt on the
+previous day.
+
+"Does it not seem to you," he asked, "that if you receive him at all,
+you might at least conceal something of your hatred for him?"
+
+"Why should I? Have you forgotten what I told you yesterday?"
+
+"It would be hard to forget that, though you told me no details. But it
+is not easy to imagine how you can see him at all if he killed your
+husband deliberately in a duel."
+
+"It is impossible to put the case more plainly!" exclaimed Maria
+Consuelo.
+
+"Do I offend you?"
+
+"No. Not exactly."
+
+"Forgive me, if I do. If Spicca, as I suppose, was the unwilling cause
+of your great loss, he is much to be pitied. I am not sure that he does
+not deserve almost as much pity as you do."
+
+"How can you say that--even if the rest were true?"
+
+"Think of what he must suffer. He is devotedly attached to you."
+
+"I know he is. You have told me that before, and I have given you the
+same answer. I want neither his attachment nor his devotion."
+
+"Then refuse to see him."
+
+"I cannot."
+
+"We come back to the same point again," said Orsino.
+
+"We always shall, if you talk about this. There is no other issue.
+Things are what they are and I cannot change them."
+
+"Do you know," said Orsino, "that all this mystery is a very serious
+hindrance to friendship?"
+
+Maria Consuelo was silent for a moment.
+
+"Is it?" she asked presently. "Have you always thought so?"
+
+The question was a hard one to answer.
+
+"You have always seemed mysterious to me," answered Orsino. "Perhaps
+that is a great attraction. But instead of learning the truth about you,
+I am finding out that there are more and more secrets in your life which
+I must not know."
+
+"Why should you know them?"
+
+"Because--" Orsino checked himself, almost with a start.
+
+He was annoyed at the words which had been so near his lips, for he had
+been on the point of saying "because I love you"--and he was intimately
+convinced that he did not love her. He could not in the least understand
+why the phrase was so ready to be spoken. Could it be, he asked himself,
+that Maria Consuelo was trying to make him say the words, and that her
+will, with her question, acted directly on his mind? He scouted the
+thought as soon as it presented itself, not only for its absurdity, but
+because it shocked some inner sensibility.
+
+"What were you going to say?" asked Madame d'Aranjuez almost carelessly.
+
+"Something that is best not said," he answered.
+
+"Then I am glad you did not say it."
+
+She spoke quietly and unaffectedly. It needed little divination on her
+part to guess what the words might have been. Even if she wished them
+spoken, she would not have them spoken too lightly, for she had heard
+his love speeches before, when they had meant very little.
+
+Orsino suddenly turned the subject, as though he felt unsure of himself.
+He asked her about the result of her search, in the morning. She
+answered that she had determined to take the apartment in the Palazzo
+Barberini.
+
+"I believe it is a very large place," observed Orsino, indifferently.
+
+"Yes," she answered in the same tone. "I mean to receive this winter.
+But it will be a tiresome affair to furnish such a wilderness."
+
+"I suppose you mean to establish yourself in Rome for several years."
+His face expressed a satisfaction of which he was hardly conscious
+himself. Maria Consuelo noticed it.
+
+"You seem pleased," she said.
+
+"How could I possibly not be?" he asked.
+
+Then he was silent. All his own words seemed to him to mean too much or
+too little. He wished she would choose some subject of conversation and
+talk that he might listen. But she also was unusually silent.
+
+He cut his visit short, very suddenly, and left her, saying that he
+hoped to find her at home as a general rule at that hour, quite
+forgetting that she would naturally be always out at the cool time
+towards evening.
+
+He walked slowly homewards in the dusk, and did not remember to go to
+his solitary dinner until nearly nine o'clock. He was not pleased with
+himself, but he was involuntarily pleased by something he felt and would
+not have been insensible to if he had been given the choice. His old
+interest in Maria Consuelo was reviving, and yet was turning into
+something very different from what it had been.
+
+He now boldly denied to himself that he was in love and forced himself
+to speculate concerning the possibilities of friendship. In his young
+system, it was absurd to suppose that a man could fall in love a second
+time with the same woman. He scoffed at himself, at the idea and at his
+own folly, having all the time a consciousness amounting to certainty,
+of something very real and serious, by no means to be laughed at,
+overlooked nor despised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+It was to be foreseen that Orsino and Maria Consuelo would see each
+other more often and more intimately now than ever before. Apart from
+the strong mutual attraction which drew them nearer and nearer together,
+there were many new circumstances which rendered Orsino's help almost
+indispensable to his friend. The details of her installation in the
+apartment she had chosen were many, there was much to be thought of and
+there were enormous numbers of things to be bought, almost each needing
+judgment and discrimination in the choice. Had the two needed reasonable
+excuses for meeting very often they had them ready to their hand. But
+neither of them were under any illusion, and neither cared to affect
+that peculiar form of self-forgiveness which finds good reasons always
+for doing what is always pleasant. Orsino, indeed, never pressed his
+services and was careful not to be seen too often in public with Maria
+Consuelo by the few acquaintances who were in town. Nor did Madame
+d'Aranjuez actually ask his help at every turn, any more than she made
+any difficulty about accepting it. There was a tacit understanding
+between them which did away with all necessity for inventing excuses on
+the one hand, or for the affectation of fearing to inconvenience Orsino
+on the other. During some time, however, the subjects which both knew to
+be dangerous were avoided, with an unspoken mutual consent for which
+Maria Consuelo was more grateful than for all the trouble Orsino was
+giving himself on her account. She fancied, perhaps, that he had at last
+accepted the situation, and his society gave her too much happiness to
+allow of her asking whether his discretion would or could last long.
+
+It was an anomalous relation which bound them together, as is often the
+case at some period during the development of a passion, and most often
+when the absence of obstacles makes the growth of affection slow and
+regular. It was a period during which a new kind of intimacy began to
+exist, as far removed from the half-serious, half-jesting intercourse of
+earlier days as it was from the ultimate happiness to which all those
+who love look forward with equal trust, although few ever come near it
+and fewer still can ever reach it quite. It was outwardly a sort of
+frank comradeship which took a vast deal for granted on both sides for
+the mere sake of escaping analysis, a condition in which each understood
+all that the other said, while neither quite knew what was in the
+other's heart, a state in which both were pleased to dwell for a time,
+as though preferring to prolong a sure if imperfect happiness rather
+than risk one moment of it for the hope of winning a life-long joy. It
+was a time during which mere friendship reached an artificially perfect
+beauty, like a summer fruit grown under glass in winter, which in
+thoroughly unnatural conditions attains a development almost impossible
+even where unhelped nature is most kind. Both knew, perhaps, that it
+could not last, but neither wished it checked, and neither liked to
+think of the moment when it must either begin to wither by degrees, or
+be suddenly absorbed into a greater and more dangerous growth.
+
+At that time they were able to talk fluently upon the nature of the
+human heart and the durability of great affections. They propounded the
+problems of the world and discussed them between the selection of a
+carpet and the purchase of a table. They were ready at any moment to
+turn from the deepest conversation to the consideration of the merest
+detail, conscious that they could instantly take up the thread of their
+talk. They could separate the major proposition from the minor, and the
+deduction from both, by a lively argument concerning the durability of a
+stuff or the fitness of a piece of furniture, and they came back each
+time with renewed and refreshed interest to the consideration of matters
+little less grave than the resurrection of the dead and the life of the
+world to come. That their conclusions were not always logical nor even
+very sensible has little to do with the matter. On the contrary, the
+discovery of a flaw in their own reasoning was itself a reason for
+opening the question again at their next meeting.
+
+At first their conversation was of general things, including the
+desirability of glory for its own sake, the immortality of the soul and
+the principles of architecture. Orsino was often amazed to find himself
+talking, and, as he fancied, talking well, upon subjects of which he had
+hitherto supposed with some justice that he knew nothing. By and by they
+fell upon literature and dissected the modern novel with the keen zest
+of young people who seek to learn the future secrets of their own lives
+from vivid descriptions of the lives of others. Their knowledge of the
+modern novel was not so limited as their acquaintance with many other
+things less amusing, if more profitable, and they worked the vein with
+lively energy and mutual satisfaction.
+
+Then, as always, came the important move. They began to talk of love.
+The interest ceased to be objective or in any way vicarious and was
+transferred directly to themselves.
+
+These steps are not, I think, to be ever thought of as stages in the
+development of character in man or woman. They are phases in the
+intercourse of man and woman. Clever people know them well and know how
+to produce them at will. The end may or may not be love, but an end of
+some sort is inevitable. According to the persons concerned, according
+to circumstances, according to the amount of available time, the
+progression from general subjects to the discussion of love, with
+self-application of the conclusions, more or less sincere, may occupy an
+hour, a month or a year. Love is the one subject which ultimately
+attracts those not too old to talk about it, and those who consider that
+they have reached such an age are few.
+
+In the case of Orsino and Maria Consuelo, neither of the two was making
+any effort to lead up to a certain definite result, for both felt a real
+dread of reaching that point which is ever afterwards remembered as the
+last moment of hardly sustained friendship and the first of something
+stronger and too often less happy. Orsino was inexperienced, but Maria
+Consuelo was quite conscious of the tendency in a fixed direction.
+Whether she had made up her mind, or not, she tried as skilfully as she
+could to retard the movement, for she was very happy in the present and
+probably feared the first stirring of her own ardently passionate
+nature.
+
+As for Orsino, indeed, his inexperience was relative. He was anxious to
+believe that he was only her friend, and pretended to his own conscience
+that he could not explain the frequency with which the words "I love
+you" presented themselves. The desire to speak them was neither a
+permanent impulse of which he was always conscious nor a sudden strong
+emotion like a temptation, giving warning of itself by a few heart-beats
+before it reached its strength. The words came to his lips so naturally
+and unexpectedly that he often wondered how he saved himself from
+pronouncing them. It was impossible for him to foresee when they would
+crave utterance. At last he began to fancy that they rang in his mind
+without a reason and without a wish on his part to speak them, as a
+perfectly indifferent tune will ring in the ear for days so that one
+cannot get rid of it.
+
+Maria Consuelo had not intended to spend September and October
+altogether in Rome. She had supposed that it would be enough to choose
+her apartment and give orders to some person about the furnishing of it
+to her taste, and that after that she might go to the seaside until the
+heat should be over, coming up to the city from time to time as occasion
+required. But she seemed to have changed her mind. She did not even
+suggest the possibility of going away.
+
+She generally saw Orsino in the afternoon. He found no difficulty in
+making time to see her, whenever he could be useful, but his own
+business naturally occupied all the earlier part of the day. As a rule,
+therefore, he called between half-past four and five, and so soon as it
+was cool enough they went together to the Palazzo Barberini to see what
+progress the upholsterers were making and to consider matters of taste.
+The great half-furnished rooms with the big windows overlooking the
+little garden before the palace were pleasant to sit in and wander in
+during the hot September afternoons. The pair were not often quite
+alone, even for a quarter of an hour, the place being full of workmen
+who came and went, passed and repassed, as their occupations required,
+often asking for orders and probably needing more supervision than Maria
+Consuelo bestowed upon them.
+
+On a certain evening late in September the two were together in the
+large drawing-room. Maria Consuelo was tired and was leaning back in a
+deep seat, her hands folded upon her knee, watching Orsino as he slowly
+paced the carpet, crossing and recrossing in his short walk, his face
+constantly turned towards her. It was excessively hot. The air was
+sultry with thunder, and though it was past five o'clock the windows
+were still closely shut to keep out the heat. A clear, soft light filled
+the room, not reflected from a burning pavement, but from grass and
+plashing water.
+
+They had been talking of a chimneypiece which Maria Consuelo wished to
+have placed in the hall. The style of what she wanted suggested the
+sixteenth century, Henry Second of France, Diana of Poitiers and the
+durability of the affections. The transition from fireplaces to true
+love had been accomplished with comparative ease, the result of daily
+practice and experience. It is worth noting, for the benefit of the
+young, that furniture is an excellent subject for conversation for that
+very reason, nothing being simpler than to go in three minutes from a
+table to an epoch, from an epoch to an historical person and from that
+person to his or her love story. A young man would do well to associate
+the life of some famous lover or celebrated and unhappy beauty with
+each style of woodwork and upholstery. It is always convenient. But if
+he has not the necessary preliminary knowledge he may resort to a
+stratagem.
+
+"What a comfortable chair!" says he, as he deposits his hat on the floor
+and sits down.
+
+"Do you like comfortable chairs?"
+
+"Of course. Fancy what life was in the days of stiff wooden seats, when
+you had to carry a cushion about with you. You know that sort of
+thing--twelfth century, Francesca da Rimini and all that."
+
+"Poor Francesca!"
+
+If she does not say "Poor Francesca!" as she probably will, you can say
+it yourself, very feelingly and in a different tone, after a short
+pause. The one kiss which cost two lives makes the story particularly
+useful. And then the ice is broken. If Paolo and Francesca had not been
+murdered, would they have loved each other for ever? As nobody knows
+what they would have done, you can assert that they would have been
+faithful or not, according to your taste, humour or personal intentions.
+Then you can talk about the husband, whose very hasty conduct
+contributed so materially to the shortness of the story. If you wish to
+be thought jealous, you say he was quite right; if you desire to seem
+generous, you say with equal conviction that he was quite wrong. And so
+forth. Get to generalities as soon as possible in order to apply them to
+your own case.
+
+Orsino and Maria Consuelo were the guileless victims of furniture,
+neither of them being acquainted with the method just set forth for the
+instruction of the innocent. They fell into their own trap and wondered
+how they had got from mantelpieces to hearts in such an incredibly short
+time.
+
+"It is quite possible to love twice," Orsino was saying.
+
+"That depends upon what you mean by love," answered Maria Consuelo,
+watching him with half-closed eyes.
+
+Orsino laughed.
+
+"What I mean by love? I suppose I mean very much what other people mean
+by it--or a little more," he added, and the slight change in his voice
+pleased her.
+
+"Do you think that any two understand the same thing when they speak of
+love?" she asked.
+
+"We two might," he answered, resuming his indifferent tone. "After all,
+we have talked so much together during the last month that we ought to
+understand each other."
+
+"Yes," said Maria Consuelo. "And I think we do," she added thoughtfully.
+
+"Then why should we think differently about the same thing? But I am not
+going to try and define love. It is not easily defined, and I am not
+clever enough." He laughed again. "There are many illnesses which I
+cannot define--but I know that one may have them twice."
+
+"There are others which one can only have once--dangerous ones, too."
+
+"I know it. But that has nothing to do with the argument."
+
+"I think it has--if this is an argument at all."
+
+"No. Love is not enough like an illness--it is quite the contrary. It is
+a recovery from an unnatural state--that of not loving. One may fall
+into that state and recover from it more than once."
+
+"What a sophism!"
+
+"Why do you say that? Do you think that not to love is the normal
+condition of mankind?"
+
+Maria Consuelo was silent, still watching him.
+
+"You have nothing to say," he continued, stopping and standing before
+her. "There is nothing to be said. A man or woman who does not love is
+in an abnormal state. When he or she falls in love it is a recovery. One
+may recover so long as the heart has enough vitality. Admit it--for you
+must. It proves that any properly constituted person may love twice, at
+least."
+
+"There is an idea of faithlessness in it, nevertheless," said Maria
+Consuelo, thoughtfully. "Or if it is not faithless, it is fickle. It is
+not the same to oneself to love twice. One respects oneself less."
+
+"I cannot believe that."
+
+"We all ought to believe it. Take a case as an instance. A woman loves a
+man with all her heart, to the point of sacrificing very much for him.
+He loves her in the same way. In spite of the strongest opposition, they
+agree to be married. On the very day of the marriage he is taken from
+her--for ever--loving her as he has always loved her, and as he would
+always have loved her had he lived. What would such a woman feel, if she
+found herself forgetting such a love as that after two or three years,
+for another man? Do you think she would respect herself more or less? Do
+you think she would have the right to call herself a faithful woman?"
+
+Orsino was silent for a moment, seeing that she meant herself by the
+example. She, indeed, had only told him that her husband had been
+killed, but Spicca had once said of her that she had been married to a
+man who had never been her husband.
+
+"A memory is one thing--real life is quite another," said Orsino at
+last, resuming his walk.
+
+"And to be faithful cannot possibly mean to be faithless," answered
+Maria Consuelo in a low voice.
+
+She rose and went to one of the windows. She must have wished to hide
+her face, for the outer blinds and the glass casement were both shut and
+she could see nothing but the green light that struck the painted wood.
+Orsino went to her side.
+
+"Shall I open the window?" he asked in a constrained voice.
+
+"No--not yet. I thought I could see out."
+
+Still she stood where she was, her face almost touching the pane, one
+small white hand resting upon the glass, the fingers moving restlessly.
+
+"You meant yourself, just now," said Orsino softly.
+
+She neither spoke nor moved, but her face grew pale. Then he fancied
+that there was a hardly perceptible movement of her head, the merest
+shade of an inclination. He leaned a little towards her, resting against
+the marble sill of the window.
+
+"And you meant something more--" he began to say. Then he stopped short.
+
+His heart was beating hard and the hot blood throbbed in his temples,
+his lips closed tightly and his breathing was audible.
+
+Maria Consuelo turned her head, glanced at him quickly and instantly
+looked back at the smooth glass before her and at the green light on the
+shutters without. He was scarcely conscious that she had moved. In love,
+as in a storm at sea, matters grow very grave in a few moments.
+
+"You meant that you might still--" Again he stopped. The words would not
+come.
+
+He fancied that she would not speak. She could not, any more than she
+could have left his side at that moment. The air was very sultry even in
+the cool, closed room. The green light on the shutters darkened
+suddenly. Then a far distant peal of thunder rolled its echoes slowly
+over the city. Still neither moved from the window.
+
+"If you could--" Orsino's voice was low and soft, but there was
+something strangely overwrought in the nervous quality of it. It was not
+hesitation any longer that made him stop.
+
+"Could you love me?" he asked. He thought he spoke aloud. When he had
+spoken, he knew that he had whispered the words.
+
+His face was colourless. He heard a short, sharp breath, drawn like a
+gasp. The small white hand fell from the window and gripped his own with
+sudden, violent strength. Neither spoke. Another peal of thunder, nearer
+and louder, shook the air. Then Orsino heard the quick-drawn breath
+again, and the white hand went nervously to the fastening of the window.
+Orsino opened the casement and thrust back the blinds. There was a vivid
+flash, more thunder, and a gust of stifling wind. Maria Consuelo leaned
+far out, looking up, and a few great drops of rain, began to fall.
+
+The storm burst and the cold rain poured down furiously, wetting the two
+white faces at the window. Maria Consuelo drew back a little, and Orsino
+leaned against the open casement, watching her. It was as though the
+single pressure of their hands had crushed out the power of speech for a
+time.
+
+For weeks they had talked daily together during many hours. They could
+not foresee that at the great moment there would be nothing left for
+them to say. The rain fell in torrents and the gusty wind rose and
+buffeted the face of the great palace with roaring strength, to sink
+very suddenly an instant later in the steadily rushing noise of the
+water, springing up again without warning, rising and falling, falling
+and rising, like a great sobbing breath. The wind and the rain seemed to
+be speaking for the two who listened to it.
+
+Orsino watched Maria Consuelo's face, not scrutinising it, nor realising
+very much whether it were beautiful or not, nor trying to read the
+thoughts that were half expressed in it--not thinking at all, indeed,
+but only loving it wholly and in every part for the sake of the woman
+herself, as he had never dreamed of loving any one or anything.
+
+At last Maria Consuelo turned very slowly and looked into his eyes. The
+passionate sadness faded out of the features, the faint colour rose
+again, the full lips relaxed, the smile that came was full of a
+happiness that seemed almost divine.
+
+"I cannot help it," she said.
+
+"Can I?"
+
+"Truly?"
+
+Her hand was lying on the marble ledge. Orsino laid his own upon it, and
+both trembled a little. She understood more than any word could have
+told her.
+
+"For how long?" she asked.
+
+"For all our lives now, and for all our life hereafter."
+
+He raised her hand to his lips, bending his head, and then he drew her
+from the window, and they walked slowly up and down the great room.
+
+"It is very strange," she said presently, in a low voice.
+
+"That I should love you?"
+
+"Yes. Where were we an hour ago? What is become of that old time--that
+was an hour ago?"
+
+"I have forgotten, dear--that was in the other life."
+
+"The other life! Yes--how unhappy I was--there, by that window, a
+hundred years ago!"
+
+She laughed softly, and Orsino smiled as he looked down at her.
+
+"Are you happy now?"
+
+"Do not ask me--how could I tell you?"
+
+"Say it to yourself, love--I shall see it in your dear face."
+
+"Am I not saying it?"
+
+Then they were silent again, walking side by side, their arms locked and
+pressing one another.
+
+It began to dawn upon Orsino that a great change had come into his life,
+and he thought of the consequences of what he was doing. He had not said
+that he was happy, but in the first moment he had felt it more than she.
+The future, however, would not be like the present, and could not be a
+perpetual continuation of it. Orsino was not at all of a romantic
+disposition, and the practical side of things was always sure to present
+itself to his mind very early in any affair. It was a part of his nature
+and by no means hindered him from feeling deeply and loving sincerely.
+But it shortened his moments of happiness.
+
+"Do you know what this means to you and me?" he asked, after a time.
+
+Maria Consuelo started very slightly and looked up at him.
+
+"Let us think of to-morrow--to-morrow," she said. Her voice trembled a
+little.
+
+"Is it so hard to think of?" asked Orsino, fearing lest he had
+displeased her.
+
+"Very hard," she answered, in a low voice.
+
+"Not for me. Why should it be? If anything can make to-day more
+complete, it is to think that to-morrow will be more perfect, and the
+next day still more, and so on, each day better than the one before it."
+
+Maria Consuelo shook her head.
+
+"Do not speak of it," she said.
+
+"Will you not love me to-morrow?" Orsino asked. The light in his face
+told how little earnestly he asked the question, but she turned upon him
+quickly.
+
+"Do you doubt yourself, that you should doubt me?" There was a ring of
+terror in the words that startled him as he heard them.
+
+"Beloved--no--how can you think I meant it?"
+
+"Then do not say it." She shivered a little, and bent down her head.
+
+"No--I will not. But--dear--do you know where we are?"
+
+"Where we are?" she repeated, not understanding.
+
+"Yes--where we are. This was to have been your home this year."
+
+"Was to have been?" A frightened look came into her face.
+
+"It will not be, now. Your home is not in this house."
+
+Again she shook her head, turning her face away.
+
+"It must be," she said.
+
+Orsino was surprised beyond expression by the answer.
+
+"Either you do not know what you are saying, or you do not mean it,
+dear," he said. "Or else you will not understand me."
+
+"I understand you too well."
+
+Orsino made her stop and took both her hands, looking down into her
+eyes.
+
+"You will marry me," he said.
+
+"I cannot marry you," she answered.
+
+Her face grew even paler than it had been when they had stood at the
+window, and so full of pain and sadness that it hurt Orsino to look at
+it. But the words she spoke, in her clear, distinct tones, struck him
+like a blow unawares. He knew that she loved him, for her love was in
+every look and gesture, without attempt at concealment. He believed her
+to be a good woman. He was certain that her husband was dead. He could
+not understand, and he grew suddenly angry. An older man would have done
+worse, or a man less in earnest.
+
+"You must have a reason to give me--and a good one," he said gravely.
+
+"I have."
+
+She turned slowly away and began to walk alone. He followed her.
+
+"You must tell it," he said.
+
+"Tell it? Yes, I will tell it to you. It is a solemn promise before God,
+given to a man who died in my arms--to my husband. Would you have me
+break such a vow?"
+
+"Yes." Orsino drew a long breath. The objection seemed insignificant
+enough compared with the pain it had cost him before it had been
+explained.
+
+"Such promises are not binding," he continued, after a moment's pause.
+"Such a promise is made hastily, rashly, without a thought of the
+consequences. You have no right to keep it."
+
+"No right? Orsino, what are you saying! Is not an oath an oath, however
+it is taken? Is not a vow made ten times more sacred when the one for
+whom it was taken is gone? Is there any difference between my promise
+and that made before the altar by a woman who gives up the world? Should
+I be any better, if I broke mine, than the nun who broke hers?"
+
+"You cannot be in earnest?" exclaimed Orsino in a low voice.
+
+Maria Consuelo did not answer. She went towards the window and looked at
+the splashing rain. Orsino stood where he was, watching her. Suddenly
+she came back and stood before him.
+
+"We must undo this," she said.
+
+"What do you mean?" He understood well enough.
+
+"You know. We must not love each other. We must undo to-day and forget
+it."
+
+"If you can talk so lightly of forgetting, you have little to remember,"
+answered Orsino almost roughly.
+
+"You have no right to say that."
+
+"I have the right of a man who loves you."
+
+"The right to be unjust?"
+
+"I am not unjust." His tone softened again. "I know what it means, to
+say that I love you--it is my life, this love. I have known it a long
+time. It has been on my lips to say it for weeks, and since it has been
+said, it cannot be unsaid. A moment ago you told me not to doubt you. I
+do not. And now you say that we must not love each other, as though we
+had a choice to make--and why? Because you once made a rash promise--"
+
+"Hush!" interrupted Maria Consuelo. "You must not--"
+
+"I must and will. You made a promise, as though you had a right at such
+a moment to dispose of all your life--I do not speak of mine--as though
+you could know what the world held for you, and could renounce it all
+beforehand. I tell you you had no right to make such an oath, and a vow
+taken without the right to take it is no vow at all--"
+
+"It is--it is! I cannot break it!"
+
+"If you love me you will. But you say we are to forget. Forget! It is so
+easy to say. How shall we do it?"
+
+"I will go away--"
+
+"If you have the heart to go away, then go. But I will follow you. The
+world is very small, they say--it will not be hard for me to find you,
+wherever you are."
+
+"If I beg you--if I ask it as the only kindness, the only act of
+friendship, the only proof of your love--you will not come--you will not
+do that--"
+
+"I will, if it costs your soul and mine."
+
+"Orsino! You do not mean it--you see how unhappy I am, how I am trying
+to do right, how hard it is!"
+
+"I see that you are trying to ruin both our lives. I will not let you.
+Besides, you do not mean it."
+
+Maria Consuelo looked into his eyes and her own grew deep and dark. Then
+as though she felt herself yielding, she turned away and sat down in a
+chair that stood apart from the rest. Orsino followed her, and tried to
+take her hand, bending down to meet her downcast glance.
+
+"You do not mean it, Consuelo," he said earnestly. "You do not mean one
+hundredth part of what you say."
+
+She drew her fingers from his, and turned her head sideways against the
+back of the chair so that she could not see him. He still bent over her,
+whispering into her ear.
+
+"You cannot go," he said. "You will not try to forget--for neither you
+nor I can--nor ought, cost what it might. You will not destroy what is
+so much to us--you would not, if you could. Look at me, love--do not
+turn away. Let me see it all in your eyes, all the truth of it and of
+every word I say."
+
+Still she turned her face from him. But she breathed quickly with parted
+lips and the colour rose slowly in her pale cheeks.
+
+"It must be sweet to be loved as I love you, dear," he said, bending
+still lower and closer to her. "It must be some happiness to know that
+you are so loved. Is there so much joy in your life that you can despise
+this? There is none in mine, without you, nor ever can be unless we are
+always together--always, dear, always, always."
+
+She moved a little, and the drooping lids lifted almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Do not tempt me, dear one," she said in a faint voice. "Let me go--let
+me go."
+
+Orsino's dark face was close to hers now, and she could see his bright
+eyes. Once she tried to look away, and could not. Again she tried,
+lifting her head from the cushioned chair. But his arm went round her
+neck and her cheek rested upon his shoulder.
+
+"Go, love," he said softly, pressing her more closely. "Go--let us not
+love each other. It is so easy not to love."
+
+She looked up into his eyes again with a sudden shiver, and they both
+grew very pale. For ten seconds neither spoke nor moved. Then their lips
+met.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+When Orsino was alone that night, he asked himself more than one
+question which he did not find it easy to answer. He could define,
+indeed, the relation in which he now stood to Maria Consuelo, for though
+she had ultimately refused to speak the words of a promise, he no longer
+doubted that she meant to be his wife and that her scruples were
+overcome for ever. This was, undeniably, the most important point in the
+whole affair, so far as his own satisfaction was concerned, but there
+were others of the gravest import to be considered and elucidated before
+he could even weigh the probabilities of future happiness.
+
+He had not lost his head on the present occasion, as he had formerly
+done when his passion had been anything but sincere. He was perfectly
+conscious that Maria Consuelo was now the principal person concerned in
+his life and that the moment would inevitably have come, sooner or
+later, in which he must have told her so as he had done on this day. He
+had not yielded to a sudden impulse, but to a steady and growing
+pressure from which there had been no means of escape, and which he had
+not sought to elude. He was not in one of those moods of half-senseless,
+exuberant spirits, such as had come upon him more than once during the
+winter after he had been an hour in her society and had said or done
+something more than usually rash. On the contrary, he was inclined to
+look the whole situation soberly in the face, and to doubt whether the
+love which dominated him might not prove a source of unhappiness to
+Maria Consuelo as well as to himself. At the same time he knew that it
+would be useless to fight against that domination, for he knew that he
+was now absolutely sincere.
+
+But the difficulties to be met and overcome were many and great. He
+might have betrothed himself to almost any woman in society, widow or
+spinster, without anticipating one hundredth part of the opposition
+which he must now certainly encounter. He was not even angry beforehand
+with the prejudice which would animate his father and mother, for he
+admitted that it was hardly a prejudice at all, and certainly not one
+peculiar to them, or to their class. It would be hard to find a family,
+anywhere, of any respectability, no matter how modest, that would accept
+without question such a choice as he had made. Maria Consuelo was one of
+those persons about whom the world is ready to speak in disparagement,
+knowing that it will not be easy to find defenders for them. The world
+indeed, loves its own and treats them with consideration, especially in
+the matter of passing follies, and after it had been plain to society
+that Orsino had fallen under Maria Consuelo's charm, he had heard no
+more disagreeable remarks about her origin nor the circumstances of her
+widowhood. But he remembered what had been said before that, when he
+himself had listened indifferently enough, and he guessed that
+ill-natured people called her an adventuress or little better. If
+anything could have increased the suffering which this intuitive
+knowledge caused him, it was the fact that he possessed no proof of her
+right to rank with the best, except his own implicit faith in her, and
+the few words Spicca had chosen to let fall. Spicca was still thought so
+dangerous that people hesitated to contradict him openly, but his mere
+assertion, Orsino thought, though it might be accepted in appearance,
+was not of enough weight to carry inward conviction with it in the
+minds of people who had no interest in being convinced. It was only too
+plain that, unless Maria Consuelo, or Spicca, or both, were willing to
+tell the strange story in its integrity, there were not proof enough to
+convince the most willing person of her right to the social position she
+occupied after that had once been called into question. To Orsino's mind
+the very fact that it had been questioned at all demonstrated
+sufficiently a carelessness on her own part which could only proceed
+from the certainty of possessing that right beyond dispute. It would
+doubtless have been possible for her to provide herself from the first
+with something in the nature of a guarantee for her identity. She could
+surely have had the means, through some friend of her own elsewhere, of
+making the acquaintance of some one in society, who would have vouched
+for her and silenced the carelessly spiteful talk concerning her which
+had gone the rounds when she first appeared. But she had seemed to be
+quite indifferent. She had refused Orsino's pressing offer to bring her
+into relations with his mother, whose influence would have been enough
+to straighten a reputation far more doubtful than Maria Consuelo's, and
+she had almost wilfully thrown herself into a sort of intimacy with the
+Countess Del Ferice.
+
+But Orsino, as he thought of these matters, saw how futile such
+arguments must seem to his own people, and how absurdly inadequate they
+were to better his own state of mind, since he needed no conviction
+himself but sought the means of convincing others. One point alone gave
+him some hope. Under the existing laws the inevitable legal marriage
+would require the production of documents which would clear the whole
+story at once. On the other hand, that fact could make Orsino's position
+no easier with his father and mother until the papers were actually
+produced. People cannot easily be married secretly in Rome, where the
+law requires the publication of banns by posting them upon the doors of
+the Capitol, and the name of Orsino Saracinesca would not be easily
+overlooked. Orsino was aware of course that he was not in need of his
+parents' consent for his marriage, but he had not been brought up in a
+way to look upon their acquiescence as unnecessary. He was deeply
+attached to them both, but especially to his mother who had been his
+staunch friend in his efforts to do something for himself, and to whom
+he naturally looked for sympathy if not for actual help. However certain
+he might be of the ultimate result of his marriage, the idea of being
+married in direct opposition to her wishes was so repugnant to him as to
+be almost an insurmountable barrier. He might, indeed, and probably
+would, conceal his engagement for some time, but solely with the
+intention of so preparing the evidence in favour of it as to make it
+immediately acceptable to his father and mother when announced.
+
+It seemed possible that, if he could bring Maria Consuelo to see the
+matter as he saw it, she might at once throw aside her reticence and
+furnish him with the information he so greatly needed. But it would be a
+delicate matter to bring her to that point of view, unconscious as she
+must be of her equivocal position. He could not go to her and tell her
+that in order to announce their engagement he must be able to tell the
+world who and what she really was. The most he could do would be to tell
+her exactly what papers were necessary for her marriage and to prevail
+upon her to procure them as soon as possible, or to hand them to him at
+once if they were already in her possession. But in order to require
+even this much of her, it was necessary to push matters farther than
+they had yet gone. He had certainly pledged himself to her, and he
+firmly believed that she considered herself bound to him. But beyond
+that, nothing definite had passed.
+
+They had been interrupted by the entrance of workmen asking for orders,
+and he had thought that Maria Consuelo had seemed anxious to detain the
+men as long as possible. That such a scene could not be immediately
+renewed where it had been broken off was clear enough, but Orsino
+fancied that she had not wished even to attempt a renewal of it. He had
+taken her home in the dusk, and she had refused to let him enter the
+hotel with her. She said that she wished to be alone, and he had been
+fain to be satisfied with the pressure of her hand and the look in her
+eyes, which both said much while not saying half of what he longed to
+hear and know.
+
+He would see her, of course, at the usual hour on the following day, and
+he determined to speak plainly and strongly. She could not ask him to
+prolong such a state of uncertainty. Considering how gradual the steps
+had been which had led up to what had taken place on that rainy
+afternoon it was not conceivable, he thought, that she would still ask
+for time to make up her mind. She would at least consent to some
+preliminary agreement upon a line of conduct for both to follow.
+
+But impossible as the other case seemed, Orsino did not neglect it. His
+mind was developing with his character and was acquiring the habit of
+foreseeing difficulties in order to forestall them. If Maria Consuelo
+returned suddenly to her original point of view maintaining that the
+promise given to her dying husband was still binding, Orsino determined
+that he would go to Spicca in a last resort. Whatever the bond which
+united them, it was clear that Spicca possessed some kind of power over
+Maria Consuelo, and that he was so far acquainted with all the
+circumstances of her previous life as to be eminently capable of giving
+Orsino advice for the future.
+
+He went to his office on the following morning with little inclination
+for work. It would be more just, perhaps, to say that he felt the desire
+to pursue his usual occupation while conscious that his mind was too
+much disturbed by the events of the previous afternoon to concentrate
+itself upon the details of accounts and plans. He found himself
+committing all sorts of errors of oversight quite unusual with him.
+Figures seemed to have lost their value and plans their meaning. With
+the utmost determination he held himself to his task, not willing to
+believe that his judgment and nerve could be so disturbed as to render
+him unfit for any serious business. But the result was contemptible as
+compared with the effort.
+
+Andrea Contini, too, was inclined to take a gloomy view of things,
+contrary to his usual habit. A report was spreading to the effect that a
+certain big contractor was on the verge of bankruptcy, a man who had
+hitherto been considered beyond the danger of heavy loss. There had been
+more than one small failure of late, but no one had paid much attention
+to such accidents which were generally attributed to personal causes
+rather than to an approaching turn in the tide of speculation. But
+Contini chose to believe that a crisis was not far off. He possessed in
+a high degree that sort of caution which is valuable rather in an
+assistant than in a chief. Orsino was little inclined to share his
+architect's despondency for the present.
+
+"You need a change of air," he said, pushing a heap of papers away from
+him and lighting a cigarette. "You ought to go down to Porto d'Anzio for
+a few days. You have been too long in the heat."
+
+"No longer than you, Don Orsino," answered Contini, from his own table.
+
+"You are depressed and gloomy. You have worked harder than I. You should
+really go out of town for a day or two."
+
+"I do not feel the need of it."
+
+Contini bent over his table again and a short silence followed. Orsino's
+mind instantly reverted to Maria Consuelo. He felt a violent desire to
+leave the office and go to her at once. There was no reason why he
+should not visit her in the morning if he pleased. At the worst, she
+might refuse to receive him. He was thinking how she would look, and
+wondering whether she would smile or meet him with earnest half
+regretful eyes, when Contini's voice broke into his meditations again.
+
+"You think I am despondent because I have been working too long in the
+heat," said the young man, rising and beginning to pace the floor before
+Orsino. "No. I am not that kind of man. I am never tired. I can go on
+for ever. But affairs in Rome will not go on for ever. I tell you that,
+Don Orsino. There is trouble in the air. I wish we had sold everything
+and could wait. It would be much better."
+
+"All this is very vague, Contini."
+
+"It is very clear to me. Matters are going from bad to worse. There is
+no doubt that Ronco has failed."
+
+"Well, and if he has? We are not Ronco. He was involved in all sorts of
+other speculations. If he had stuck to land and building he would be as
+sound as ever."
+
+"For another month, perhaps. Do you know why he is ruined?"
+
+"By his own fault, as people always are. He was rash."
+
+"No rasher than we are. I believe that the game is played out. Ronco is
+bankrupt because the bank with which he deals cannot discount any more
+bills this week."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Because the foreign banks will not take any more of all this paper that
+is flying about. Those small failures in the summer have produced their
+effect. Some of the paper was in Paris and some in Vienna. It turned out
+worthless, and the foreigners have taken fright. It is all a fraud, at
+best--or something very like it."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Tell me the truth, Don Orsino--have you seen a centime of all these
+millions which every one is dealing with? Do you believe they really
+exist? No. It is all paper, paper, and more paper. There is no cash in
+the business."
+
+"But there is land and there are houses, which represent the millions
+substantially."
+
+"Substantially! Yes--as long as the inflation lasts. After that they
+will represent nothing."
+
+"You are talking nonsense, Contini. Prices may fall, and some people
+will lose, but you cannot destroy real estate permanently."
+
+"Its value may be destroyed for ten or twenty years, which is
+practically the same thing when people have no other property. Take this
+block we are building. It represents a large sum. Say that in the next
+six months there are half a dozen failures like Ronco's and that a panic
+sets in. We could then neither sell the houses nor let them. What would
+they represent to us? Nothing. Failure--like the failure of everybody
+else. Do you know where the millions really are? You ought to know
+better than most people. They are in Casa Saracinesca and in a few other
+great houses which have not dabbled in all this business, and perhaps
+they are in the pockets of a few clever men who have got out of it all
+in time. They are certainly not in the firm of Andrea Contini and
+Company, which will assuredly be bankrupt before the winter is out."
+
+Contini bit his cigar savagely, thrust his hands into his pockets and
+looked out of the window, turning his back on Orsino. The latter watched
+his companion in surprise, not understanding why his dismal forebodings
+should find such sudden and strong expression.
+
+"I think you exaggerate very much," said Orsino. "There is always risk
+in such business as this. But it strikes me that the risk was greater
+when we had less capital."
+
+"Capital!" exclaimed the architect contemptuously and without turning
+round. "Can we draw a cheque--a plain unadorned cheque and not a
+draft--for a hundred thousand francs to-day? Or shall we be able to draw
+it to-morrow? Capital! We have a lot of brick and mortar in our
+possession, put together more or less symmetrically according to our
+taste, and practically unpaid for. If we manage to sell it in time we
+shall get the difference between what is paid and what we owe. That is
+our capital. It is problematical, to say the least of it. If we realise
+less than we owe we are bankrupt."
+
+He came back suddenly to Orsino's table as he ceased speaking and his
+face showed that he was really disturbed. Orsino looked at him steadily
+for a few seconds.
+
+"It is not only Ronco's failure that frightens you, Contini. There must
+be something else."
+
+"More of the same kind. There is enough to frighten any one."
+
+"No, there is something else. You have been talking with somebody."
+
+"With Del Ferice's confidential clerk. Yes--it is quite true. I was with
+him last night."
+
+"And what did he say? What you have been telling me, I suppose."
+
+"Something much more disagreeable--something you would rather not hear."
+
+"I wish to hear it."
+
+"You should, as a matter of fact."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"We are completely in Del Ferice's hands."
+
+"We are in the hands of his bank."
+
+"What is the difference? To all intents and purposes he is our bank. The
+proof is that but for him we should have failed already."
+
+Orsino looked up sharply.
+
+"Be clear, Contini. Tell me what you mean."
+
+"I mean this. For a month past the bank could not have discounted a
+hundred francs' worth of our paper. Del Ferice has taken it all and
+advanced the money out of his private account."
+
+"Are you sure of what you are telling me?" Orsino asked the question in
+a low voice, and his brow contracted.
+
+"One can hardly have better authority than the clerk's own statement."
+
+"And he distinctly told you this, did he?"
+
+"Most distinctly."
+
+"He must have had an object in betraying such a confidence," said
+Orsino. "It is not likely that such a man would carelessly tell you or
+me a secret which is evidently meant to be kept."
+
+He spoke quietly enough, but the tone of his voice was changed and
+betrayed how greatly he was moved by the news. Contini began to walk up
+and down again, but did not make any answer to the remark.
+
+"How much do we owe the bank?" Orsino asked suddenly.
+
+"Roughly, about six hundred thousand."
+
+"How much of that paper do you think Del Ferice has taken up himself?"
+
+"About a quarter, I fancy, from what the clerk told me."
+
+A long silence followed, during which Orsino tried to review the
+situation in all its various aspects. It was clear that Del Ferice did
+not wish Andrea Contini and Company to fail and was putting himself to
+serious inconvenience in order to avert the catastrophe. Whether he
+wished, in so doing, to keep Orsino in his power, or whether he merely
+desired to escape the charge of having ruined his old enemy's son out of
+spite, it was hard to decide. Orsino passed over that question quickly
+enough. So far as any sense of humiliation was concerned he knew very
+well that his mother would be ready and able to pay off all his
+liabilities at the shortest notice. What Orsino felt most deeply was
+profound disappointment and utter disgust at his own folly. It seemed to
+him that he had been played with and flattered into the belief that he
+was a serious man of business, while all along he had been pushed and
+helped by unseen hands. There was nothing to prove that Del Ferice had
+not thus deceived him from the first; and, indeed, when he thought of
+his small beginnings early in the year and realised the dimensions which
+the business had now assumed, he could not help believing that Del
+Ferice had been at the bottom of all his apparent success and that his
+own earnest and ceaseless efforts had really had but little to do with
+the development of his affairs. His vanity suffered terribly under the
+first shock.
+
+He was bitterly disappointed. During the preceding months he had begun
+to feel himself independent and able to stand alone, and he had looked
+forward in the near future to telling his father that he had made a
+fortune for himself without any man's help. He had remembered every word
+of cold discouragement to which he had been forced to listen at the very
+beginning, and he had felt sure of having a success to set against each
+one of those words. He knew that he had not been idle and he had fancied
+that every hour of work had produced its permanent result, and left him
+with something more to show. He had seen his mother's pride in him
+growing day by day in his apparent success, and he had been confident of
+proving to her that she was not half proud enough. All that was gone in
+a moment. He saw, or fancied that he saw, nothing but a series of
+failures which had been bolstered up and inflated into seeming triumphs
+by a man whom his father despised and hated and whom, as a man, he
+himself did not respect. The disillusionment was complete.
+
+At first it seemed to him that there was nothing to be done but to go
+directly to Saracinesca and tell the truth to his father and mother.
+Financially, when the wealth of the family was taken into consideration
+there was nothing very alarming in the situation. He would borrow of his
+father enough to clear him with Del Ferice and would sell the unfinished
+buildings for what they would bring. He might even induce his father to
+help him in finishing the work. There would be no trouble about the
+business question. As for Contini, he should not lose by the transaction
+and permanent occupation could doubtless be found for him on one of the
+estates if he chose to accept it.
+
+He thought of the interview and his vanity dreaded it. Another plan
+suggested itself to him. On the whole, it seemed easier to bear his
+dependence on Del Ferice than to confess himself beaten. There was
+nothing dishonourable, nothing which could be called so at least, in
+accepting financial accommodation from a man whose business it was to
+lend money on security. If Del Ferice chose to advance sums which his
+bank would not advance, he did it for good reasons of his own and
+certainly not in the intention of losing by it in the end. In case of
+failure Del Ferice would take the buildings for the debt and would
+certainly in that case get them for much less than they were worth.
+Orsino would be no worse off than when he had begun, he would frankly
+confess that though he had lost nothing he had not made a fortune, and
+the matter would be at an end. That would be very much easier to bear
+than the humiliation of confessing at the present moment that he was in
+Del Ferice's power and would be bankrupt but for Del Ferice's personal
+help. And again he repeated to himself that Del Ferice was not a man to
+throw money away without hope of recovery with interest. It was
+inconceivable, too, that Ugo should have pushed him so far merely to
+flatter a young man's vanity. He meant to make use of him, or to make
+money out of his failure. In either case Orsino would be his dupe and
+would not be under any obligation to him. Compared with the necessity of
+acknowledging the present state of his affairs to his father, the
+prospect of being made a tool of by Del Ferice was bearable, not to say
+attractive.
+
+"What had we better do, Contini?" he asked at length.
+
+"There is nothing to be done but to go on, I suppose, until we are
+ruined," replied the architect. "Even if we had the money, we should
+gain nothing by taking off all our bills as they fall due, instead of
+renewing them."
+
+"But if the bank will not discount any more--"
+
+"Del Ferice will, in the bank's name. When he is ready for the failure,
+we shall fail and he will profit by our loss."
+
+"Do you think that is what he means to do?"
+
+Contini looked at Orsino in surprise.
+
+"Of course. What did you expect? You do not suppose that he means to
+make us a present of that paper, or to hold it indefinitely until we can
+make a good sale."
+
+"And he will ultimately get possession of all the paper himself."
+
+"Naturally. As the old bills fall due we shall renew them with him,
+practically, and not with the bank. He knows what he is about. He
+probably has some scheme for selling the whole block to the government,
+or to some institution, and is sure of his profit beforehand. Our
+failure will give him a profit of twenty-five or thirty per cent."
+
+Orsino was strangely reassured by his partner's gloomy view. To him
+every word proved that he was free from any personal obligation to Del
+Ferice and might accept the latter's assistance without the least
+compunction. He did not like to remember that a man of Ugo's subtle
+intelligence might have something more important in view than a profit
+of a few hundred thousand francs, if indeed the sum should amount to
+that. Orsino's brow cleared and his expression changed.
+
+"You seem to like the idea," observed Contini rather irritably.
+
+"I would rather be ruined by Del Ferice than helped by him."
+
+"Ruin means so little to you, Don Orsino. It means the inheritance of an
+enormous fortune, a princess for a wife and the choice of two or three
+palaces to live in."
+
+"That is one way of putting it," answered Orsino, almost laughing. "As
+for yourself, my friend, I do not see that your prospects are so very
+bad. Do you suppose that I shall abandon you after having led you into
+this scrape, and after having learned to like you and understand your
+talent? You are very much mistaken. We have tried this together and
+failed, but as you rightly say I shall not be in the least ruined by the
+failure. Do you know what will happen? My father will tell me that
+since I have gained some experience I should go and manage one of the
+estates and improve the buildings. Then you and I will go together."
+
+Contini smiled suddenly and his bright eyes sparkled. He was profoundly
+attached to Orsino, and thought perhaps as much of the loss of his
+companionship as of the destruction of his material hopes in the event
+of a liquidation.
+
+"If that could be, I should not care what became of the business," he
+said simply.
+
+"How long do you think we shall last?" asked Orsino after a short pause.
+
+"If business grows worse, as I think it will, we shall last until the
+first bill that falls due after the doors and windows are put in."
+
+"That is precise, at least."
+
+"It will probably take us into January, or perhaps February."
+
+"But suppose that Del Ferice himself gets into trouble between now and
+then. If he cannot discount any more, what will happen?"
+
+"We shall fail a little sooner. But you need not be afraid of that. Del
+Ferice knows what he is about better than we do, better than his
+confidential clerk, much better than most men of business in Rome. If he
+fails, he will fail intentionally and at the right moment."
+
+"And do you not think that there is even a remote possibility of an
+improvement in business, so that nobody will fail at all?"
+
+"No," answered Contini thoughtfully. "I do not think so. It is a paper
+system and it will go to pieces."
+
+"Why have you not said the same thing before? You must have had this
+opinion a long time."
+
+"I did not believe that Ronco could fail. An accident opens the eyes."
+
+Orsino had almost decided to let matters go on but he found some
+difficulty in actually making up his mind. In spite of Contini's
+assurances he could not get rid of the idea that he was under an
+obligation to Del Ferice. Once, at least, he thought of going directly
+to Ugo and asking for a clear explanation of the whole affair. But Ugo
+was not in town, as he knew, and the impossibility of going at once made
+it improbable that Orsino would go at all. It would not have been a very
+wise move, for Del Ferice could easily deny the story, seeing that the
+paper was all in the bank's name, and he would probably have visited the
+indiscretion upon the unfortunate clerk.
+
+In the long silence which followed, Orsino relapsed into his former
+despondency. After all, whether he confessed his failure or not, he had
+undeniably failed and been played upon from the first, and he admitted
+it to himself without attempting to spare his vanity, and his
+self-contempt was great and painful. The fact that he had grown from a
+boy to a man during his experience did not make it easier to bear such
+wounds, which are felt more keenly by the strong than by the weak when
+they are real.
+
+As the day wore on the longing to see Maria Consuelo grew upon him until
+he felt that he had never before wished to be with her as he wished it
+now. He had no intention of telling her his trouble but he needed the
+assurance of an ever ready sympathy which he so often saw in her eyes,
+and which was always there for him when he asked it. When there is love
+there is reliance, whether expressed or not, and where there is
+reliance, be it ever so slender, there is comfort for many ills of body,
+mind and soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+Orsino felt suddenly relieved when he had left his office in the
+afternoon. Contini's gloomy mood was contagious, and so long as Orsino
+was with him it was impossible not to share the architect's view of
+affairs. Alone, however, things did not seem so bad. As a matter of
+fact it was almost impossible for the young man to give up all his
+illusions concerning his own success in one moment, and to believe
+himself the dupe of his own blind vanity instead of regarding himself as
+the winner in the fight for independence of thought and action. He could
+not deny the facts Contini alleged. He had to admit that he was
+apparently in Del Ferice's power, unless he appealed to his own people
+for assistance. He was driven to acknowledge that he had made a great
+mistake. But he could not altogether distrust himself and he fancied
+that after all, with a fair share of luck, he might prove a match for
+Ugo on the financier's own ground. He had learned to have confidence in
+his own powers and judgment, and as he walked away from the office every
+moment strengthened his determination to struggle on with such resources
+as he might be able to command, so long as there should be a possibility
+of action of any sort. He felt, too, that more depended upon his success
+than the mere satisfaction of his vanity. If he failed, he might lose
+Maria Consuelo as well as his self-respect: He had that sensation,
+familiar enough to many young men when extremely in love, that in order
+to be loved in return one must succeed, and that a single failure
+endangers the stability of a passion which, if it be honest, has nothing
+to do with failure or success. At Orsino's age, and with his temper, it
+is hard to believe that pity is more closely akin to love than
+admiration.
+
+Gradually the conviction reasserted itself that he could fight his way
+through unaided, and his spirits rose as he approached the more crowded
+quarters of the city on his way to the hotel where Maria Consuelo was
+stopping. Not even the yells of the newsboys affected him, as they
+announced the failure of the great contractor Ronco and offered, in a
+second edition, a complete account of the bankruptcy. It struck him
+indeed that before long the same brazen voices might be screaming out
+the news that Andrea Contini and Company had come to grief. But the
+idea lent a sense of danger to the situation which Orsino did not find
+unpleasant. The greater the difficulty the greater the merit in
+overcoming it, and the greater therefore the admiration he should get
+from the woman he loved. His position was certainly an odd one, and many
+men would not have felt the excitement which he experienced. The
+financial side of the question was strangely indifferent to him, who
+knew himself backed by the great fortune of his family, and believed
+that his ultimate loss could only be the small sum with which he had
+begun his operations. But the moral risk seemed enormous and grew in
+importance as he thought of it.
+
+He found Maria Consuelo looking pale and weary. She evidently had no
+intention of going out that day, for she wore a morning gown and was
+established upon a lounge with books and flowers beside her as though
+she did not mean to move. She was not reading, however. Orsino was
+startled by the sadness in her face.
+
+She looked fixedly into his eyes as she gave him her hand, and he sat
+down beside her.
+
+"I am glad you are come," she said at last, in a low voice. "I have been
+hoping all day that you would come early."
+
+"I would have come this morning if I had dared," answered Orsino.
+
+She looked at him again, and smiled faintly.
+
+"I have a great deal to say to you," she began. Then she hesitated as
+though uncertain where to begin.
+
+"And I--" Orsino tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it.
+
+"Yes, but do not say it. At least, not now."
+
+"Why not, dear one? May I not tell you how I love you? What is it, love?
+You are so sad to-day. Has anything happened?"
+
+His voice grew soft and tender as he spoke, bending to her ear. She
+pushed him gently back.
+
+"You know what has happened," she answered. "It is no wonder that I am
+sad."
+
+"I do not understand you, dear. Tell me what it is."
+
+"I told you too much yesterday--"
+
+"Too much?"
+
+"Far too much."
+
+"Are you going to unsay it?"
+
+"How can I?"
+
+She turned her face away and her fingers played nervously with her
+laces.
+
+"No--indeed, neither of us can unsay such words," said Orsino. "But I do
+not understand you yet, darling. You must tell me what you mean to-day."
+
+"You know it all. It is because you will not understand--"
+
+Orsino's face changed and his voice took another tone when he spoke.
+
+"Are you playing with me, Consuelo?" he asked gravely.
+
+She started slightly and grew paler than before.
+
+"You are not kind," she said. "I am suffering very much. Do not make it
+harder."
+
+"I am suffering, too. You mean me to understand that you regret what
+happened yesterday and that you wish to take back your words, that
+whether you love me or not, you mean to act and appear as though you did
+not, and that I am to behave as though nothing had happened. Do you
+think that would be easy? And do you think I do not suffer at the mere
+idea of it?"
+
+"Since it must be--"
+
+"There is no must," answered Orsino with energy. "You would ruin your
+life and mine for the mere shadow of a memory which you choose to take
+for a binding promise. I will not let you do it."
+
+"You will not?" She looked at him quickly with an expression of
+resistance.
+
+"No--I will not," he repeated. "We have too much at stake. You shall not
+lose all for both of us."
+
+"You are wrong, dear one," she said, with sudden softness. "If you love
+me, you should believe me and trust me. I can give you nothing but
+unhappiness--"
+
+"You have given me the only happiness I ever knew--and you ask me to
+believe that you could make me unhappy in any way except by not loving
+me! Consuelo--my darling--are you out of your senses?"
+
+"No. I am too much in them. I wish I were not. If I were mad I should--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Never mind. I will not even say it. No--do not try to take my hand, for
+I will not give it to you. Listen, Orsino--be reasonable, listen to
+me--"
+
+"I will try and listen."
+
+But Maria Consuelo did not speak at once. Possibly she was trying to
+collect her thoughts.
+
+"What have you to say, dearest?" asked Orsino at length. "I will try to
+understand."
+
+"You must understand. I will make it all clear to you and then you will
+see it as I do."
+
+"And then--what?"
+
+"And then we must part," she said in a low voice.
+
+Orsino said nothing, but shook his head incredulously.
+
+"Yes," repeated Maria Consuelo, "we must not see each other any more
+after this. It has been all my fault. I shall leave Rome and not come
+back again. It will be best for you and I will make it best for me."
+
+"You talk very easily of parting."
+
+"Do I? Every word is a wound. Do I look as though I were indifferent?"
+
+Orsino glanced at her pale face and tearful eyes.
+
+"No, dear," he said softly.
+
+"Then do not call me heartless. I have more heart than you think--and it
+is breaking. And do not say that I do not love you. I love you better
+than you know--better than you will be loved again when you are
+older--and happier, perhaps. Yes, I know what you want to say. Well,
+dear--you love me, too. Yes, I know it. Let there be no unkind words and
+no doubts between us to-day. I think it is our last day together."
+
+"For God's sake, Consuelo--"
+
+"We shall see. Now let me speak--if I can. There are three reasons why
+you and I should not marry. I have thought of them through all last
+night and all to-day, and I know them. The first is my solemn vow to the
+dying man who loved me so well and who asked nothing but that--whose
+wife I never was, but whose name I bear. Think me mad,
+superstitious--what you will--I cannot break that promise. It was almost
+an oath not to love, and if it was I have broken it. But the rest I can
+keep, and will. The next reason is that I am older than you. I might
+forget that, I have forgotten it more than once, but the time will come
+soon when you will remember it."
+
+Orsino made an angry gesture and would have spoken, but she checked him.
+
+"Pass that over, since we are both young. The third reason is harder to
+tell and no power on earth can explain it away. I am no match for you in
+birth, Orsino--"
+
+The young man interrupted her now, and fiercely.
+
+"Do you dare to think that I care what your birth may be?" he asked.
+
+"There are those who do care, even if you do not, dear one," she
+answered quietly.
+
+"And what is their caring to you or me?"
+
+"It is not so small a matter as you think. I am not talking of a mere
+difference in rank. It is worse than that. I do not really know who I
+am. Do you understand? I do not know who my mother was nor whether she
+is alive or dead, and before I was married I did not bear my father's
+name."
+
+"But you know your father--you know his name at least?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who is he?" Orsino could hardly pronounce the words of the question.
+
+"Count Spicca."
+
+Maria Consuelo spoke quietly, but her fingers trembled nervously and
+she watched Orsino's face in evident distress and anxiety. As for
+Orsino, he was almost dumb with amazement.
+
+"Spicca! Spicca your father!" he repeated indistinctly.
+
+In all his many speculations as to the tie which existed between Maria
+Consuelo and the old duellist, he had never thought of this one.
+
+"Then you never suspected it?" asked Maria Consuelo.
+
+"How should I? And your own father killed your husband--good Heavens!
+What a story!"
+
+"You know now. You see for yourself how impossible it is that I should
+marry you."
+
+In his excitement Orsino had risen and was pacing the room. He scarcely
+heard her last words, and did not say anything in reply. Maria Consuelo
+lay quite still upon the lounge, her hands clasped tightly together and
+straining upon each other.
+
+"You see it all now," she said again. This time his attention was
+arrested and he stopped before her.
+
+"Yes. I see what you mean. But I do not see it as you see it. I do not
+see that any of these things you have told me need hinder our marriage."
+
+Maria Consuelo did not move, but her expression changed. The light stole
+slowly into her face and lingered there, not driving away the sadness
+but illuminating it.
+
+"And would you have the courage, in spite of your family and of society,
+to marry me, a woman practically nameless, older than yourself--"
+
+"I not only would, but I will," answered Orsino.
+
+"You cannot--but I thank you, dear," said Maria Consuelo.
+
+He was standing close beside her. She took his hand and tenderly touched
+it with her lips. He started and drew it back, for no woman had ever
+kissed his hand.
+
+"You must not do that!" he exclaimed, instinctively.
+
+"And why not, if I please?" she asked, raising her eyebrows with a
+little affectionate laugh.
+
+"I am not good enough to kiss your hand, darling--still less to let you
+kiss mine. Never mind--we were talking--where were we?"
+
+"You were saying--" But he interrupted her.
+
+"What does it matter, when I love you so, and you love me?" he asked
+passionately.
+
+He knelt beside her as she lay on the lounge and took her hands, holding
+them and drawing her towards him. She resisted and turned her face away.
+
+"No--no! It matters too much--let me go, it only makes it worse!"
+
+"Makes what worse?"
+
+"Parting--"
+
+"We will not part. I will not let you go!"
+
+But still she struggled with her hands and he, fearing to hurt them in
+his grasp, let them slip away with a lingering touch.
+
+"Get up," she said. "Sit here, beside me--a little further--there. We
+can talk better so."
+
+"I cannot talk at all--"
+
+"Without holding my hands?"
+
+"Why should I not?"
+
+"Because I ask you. Please, dear--"
+
+She drew back on the lounge, raised herself a little and turned her face
+to him. Again, as his eyes met hers, he leaned forward quickly, as
+though he would leave his seat. But she checked him, by an imperative
+glance and a gesture. He was unreasonable and had no right to be
+annoyed, but something in her manner chilled him and pained him in a way
+he could not have explained. When he spoke there was a shade of change
+in the tone of his voice.
+
+"The things you have told me do not influence me in the least," he said
+with more calmness than he had yet shown. "What you believe to be the
+most important reason is no reason at all to me. You are Count Spicca's
+daughter. He is an old friend of my father--not that it matters very
+materially, but it may make everything easier. I will go to him to-day
+and tell him that I wish to marry you--"
+
+"You will not do that!" exclaimed Maria Consuelo in a tone of alarm.
+
+"Yes, I will. Why not? Do you know what he once said to me? He told me
+he wished we might take a fancy to each other, because, as he expressed
+it, we should be so well matched."
+
+"Did he say that?" asked Maria Consuelo gravely.
+
+"That or something to the same effect. Are you surprised? What surprises
+me is that I should never have guessed the relation between you. Now
+your father is a very honourable man. What he said meant something, and
+when he said it he meant that our marriage would seem natural to him and
+to everybody. I will go and talk to him. So much for your great reason.
+As for the second you gave, it is absurd. We are of the same age, to all
+intents and purposes."
+
+"I am not twenty-three years old."
+
+"And I am not quite two and twenty. Is that a difference? So much for
+that. Take the third, which you put first. Seriously, do you think that
+any intelligent being would consider you bound by such a promise? Do you
+mean to say that a young girl--you were nothing more--has a right to
+throw away her life out of sentiment by making a promise of that kind?
+And to whom? To a man who is not her husband, and never can be, because
+he is dying. To a man just not indifferent to her, to a man--"
+
+Maria Consuelo raised herself and looked full at Orsino. Her face was
+extremely pale and her eyes were suddenly dark and gleamed.
+
+"Don Orsino, you have no right to talk to me in that way. I loved
+him--no one knows how I loved him!"
+
+There was no mistaking the tone and the look. Orsino felt again and more
+strongly, the chill and the pain he had felt before. He was silent for
+a moment. Maria Consuelo looked at him a second longer, and then let her
+head fall back upon the cushion. But the expression which had come into
+her face did not change at once.
+
+"Forgive me," said Orsino after a pause. "I had not quite understood.
+The only imaginable reason which could make our marriage impossible
+would be that. If you loved him so well--if you loved him in such a way
+as to prevent you from loving me as I love you--why then, you may be
+right after all."
+
+In the silence which followed, he turned his face away and gazed at the
+window. He had spoken quietly enough and his expression, strange to say,
+was calm and thoughtful. It is not always easy for a woman to understand
+a man, for men soon learn to conceal what hurts them but take little
+trouble to hide their happiness, if they are honest. A man more often
+betrays himself by a look of pleasure than by an expression of
+disappointment. It was thought manly to bear pain in silence long before
+it became fashionable to seem indifferent to joy.
+
+Orsino's manner displeased Maria Consuelo. It was too quiet and cold and
+she thought he cared less than he really did.
+
+"You say nothing," he said at last.
+
+"What shall I say? You speak of something preventing me from loving you
+as you love me. How can I tell how much you love me?"
+
+"Do you not see it? Do you not feel it?" Orsino's tone warmed again as
+he turned towards her, but he was conscious of an effort. Deeply as he
+loved her, it was not natural for him to speak passionately just at that
+moment, but he knew she expected it and he did his best. She was
+disappointed.
+
+"Not always," she answered with a little sigh.
+
+"You do not always believe that I love you?"
+
+"I did not say that. I am not always sure that you love me as much as
+you think you do--you imagine a great deal."
+
+"I did not know it."
+
+"Yes--sometimes. I am sure it is so."
+
+"And how am I to prove that you are wrong and I am right?"
+
+"How should I know? Perhaps time will show."
+
+"Time is too slow for me. There must be some other way."
+
+"Find it then," said Maria Consuelo, smiling rather sadly.
+
+"I will."
+
+He meant what he said, but the difficulty of the problem perplexed him
+and there was not enough conviction in his voice. He was thinking rather
+of the matter itself than of what he said. Maria Consuelo fanned herself
+slowly and stared at the wall.
+
+"If you doubt so much," said Orsino at last, "I have the right to doubt
+a little too. If you loved me well enough you would promise to marry me.
+You do not."
+
+There was a short pause. At last Maria Consuelo closed her fan, looked
+at it and spoke.
+
+"You say my reason is not good. Must I go all over it again? It seems a
+good one to me. Is it incredible to you that a woman should love twice?
+Such things have happened before. Is it incredible to you that, loving
+one person, a woman should respect the memory of another and a solemn
+promise given to that other? I should respect myself less if I did not.
+That it is all my fault I will admit, if you like--that I should never
+have received you as I did--I grant it all--that I was weak yesterday,
+that I am weak to-day, that I should be weak to-morrow if I let this go
+on. I am sorry. You can take a little of the blame if you are generous
+enough, or vain enough. You have tried hard to make me love you and you
+have succeeded, for I love you very much. So much the worse for me. It
+must end now."
+
+"You do not think of me, when you say that."
+
+"Perhaps I think more of you than you know--or will understand. I am
+older than you--do not interrupt me! I am older, for a woman is always
+older than a man in some things. I know what will happen, what will
+certainly happen in time if we do not part. You will grow jealous of a
+shadow and I shall never be able to tell you that this same shadow is
+not dear to me. You will come to hate what I have loved and love still,
+though it does not prevent me from loving you too--"
+
+"But less well," said Orsino rather harshly.
+
+"You would believe that, at least, and the thought would always be
+between us."
+
+"If you loved me as much, you would not hesitate. You would marry me
+living, as you married him dead."
+
+"If there were no other reason against it--" She stopped.
+
+"There is no other reason," said Orsino insisting.
+
+Maria Consuelo shook her head but said nothing and a long silence
+followed. Orsino sat still, watching her and wondering what was passing
+in her mind. It seemed to him, and perhaps rightly, that if she were
+really in earnest and loved him with all her heart, the reasons she gave
+for a separation were far from sufficient. He had not even much faith in
+her present obstinacy and he did not believe that she would really go
+away. It was incredible that any woman could be so capricious as she
+chose to be. Her calmness, or what appeared to him her calmness, made it
+even less probable, he thought, that she meant to part from him. But the
+thought alone was enough to disturb him seriously. He had suffered a
+severe shock with outward composure but not without inward suffering,
+followed naturally enough by something like angry resentment. As he
+viewed the situation, Maria Consuelo had alternately drawn him on and
+disappointed him from the very beginning; she had taken delight in
+forcing him to speak out his love, only to chill him the next moment, or
+the next day, with the certainty that she did not love him sincerely.
+Just then he would have preferred not to put into words the thoughts of
+her that crossed his mind. They would have expressed a disbelief in her
+character which he did not really feel and an opinion of his own
+judgment which he would rather not have accepted.
+
+He even went so far, in his anger, as to imagine what would happen if he
+suddenly rose to go. She would put on that sad look of hers and give him
+her hand coldly. Then just as he reached the door she would call him
+back, only to send him away again. He would find on the following day
+that she had not left town after all, or, at most, that she had gone to
+Florence for a day or two, while the workmen completed the furnishing of
+her apartment. Then she would come back and would meet him just as
+though there had never been anything between them.
+
+The anticipation was so painful to him that he wished to have it
+realised and over as soon as possible, and he looked at her again before
+rising from his seat. He could hardly believe that she was the same
+woman who had stood with him, watching the thunderstorm, on the previous
+afternoon.
+
+He saw that she was pale, but she was not facing the light and the
+expression of her face was not distinctly visible. On the whole, he
+fancied that her look was one of indifference. Her hands lay idly upon
+her fan and by the drooping of her lids she seemed to be looking at
+them. The full, curved lips were closed, but not drawn in as though in
+pain, nor pouting as though in displeasure. She appeared to be
+singularly calm. After hesitating another moment Orsino rose to his
+feet. He had made up his mind what to say, for it was little enough, but
+his voice trembled a little.
+
+"Good-bye, Madame."
+
+Maria Consuelo started slightly and looked up, as though to see whether
+he really meant to go at that moment. She had no idea that he really
+thought of taking her at her word and parting then and there. She did
+not realise how true it was that she was much older than he and she had
+never believed him to be as impulsive as he sometimes seemed.
+
+"Do not go yet," she said, instinctively.
+
+"Since you say that we must part--" he stopped, as though leaving her to
+finish the sentence in imagination.
+
+A frightened look passed quickly over Maria Consuelo's face. She made as
+though she would have taken his hand, then drew back her own and bit her
+lip, not angrily but as though she were controlling something.
+
+"Since you insist upon our parting," Orsino said, after a short,
+strained silence, "it is better that it should be got over at once." In
+spite of himself his voice was still unsteady.
+
+"I did not--no--yes, it is better so."
+
+"Then good-bye, Madame."
+
+It was impossible for her to understand all that had passed in his mind
+while he had sat beside her, after the previous conversation had ended.
+His abruptness and coldness were incomprehensible to her.
+
+"Good-bye, then--Orsino."
+
+For a moment her eyes rested on his. It was the sad look he had
+anticipated, and she put out her hand now. Surely, he thought, if she
+loved him she would not let him go so easily. He took her fingers and
+would have raised them to his lips when they suddenly closed on his, not
+with the passionate, loving pressure of yesterday, but firmly and
+quietly, as though they would not be disobeyed, guiding him again to his
+seat close beside her. He sat down.
+
+"Good-bye, then, Orsino," she repeated, not yet relinquishing her hold.
+"Good-bye, dear, since it must be good-bye--but not good-bye as you said
+it. You shall not go until you can say it differently."
+
+She let him go now and changed her own position. Her feet slipped to the
+ground and she leaned with her elbow upon the head of the lounge,
+resting her cheek against her hand. She was nearer to him now than
+before and their eyes met as they faced each other. She had certainly
+not chosen her attitude with any second thought of her own appearance,
+but as Orsino looked into her face he saw again clearly all the
+beauties that he had so long admired, the passionate eyes, the full,
+firm mouth, the broad brow, the luminous white skin--all beauties in
+themselves though not, together, making real beauty in her case. And
+beyond these he saw and felt over them all and through them all the
+charm that fascinated him, appealing as it were to him in particular of
+all men as it could not appeal to another. He was still angry, disturbed
+out of his natural self and almost out of his passion, but he felt none
+the less that Maria Consuelo could hold him if she pleased, as long as a
+shadow of affection for her remained in him, and perhaps longer. When
+she spoke, he knew what she meant, and he did not interrupt her nor
+attempt to answer.
+
+"I have meant all I have said to-day," she continued. "Do not think it
+is easy for me to say more. I would give all I have to give to take back
+yesterday, for yesterday was my great mistake. I am only a woman and you
+will forgive me. I do what I am doing now, for your sake--God knows it
+is not for mine. God knows how hard it is for me to part from you. I am
+in earnest, you see. You believe me now."
+
+Her voice was steady but the tears were already welling over.
+
+"Yes, dear, I believe you," Orsino answered softly. Women's tears are a
+great solvent of man's ill temper.
+
+"As for this being right and best, this parting, you will see it as I do
+sooner or later. But you do believe that I love you, dearly, tenderly,
+very--well, no matter how--you believe it?"
+
+"I believe it--"
+
+"Then say 'good-bye, Consuelo'--and kiss me once--for what might have
+been."
+
+Orsino half rose, bent down and kissed her cheek.
+
+"Good-bye, Consuelo," he said, almost whispering the words into her ear.
+In his heart he did not think she meant it. He still expected that she
+would call him back.
+
+"It is good-bye, dear--believe it--remember it!" Her voice shook a
+little now.
+
+"Good-bye, Consuelo," he repeated.
+
+With a loving look that meant no good-bye he drew back and went to the
+door. He laid his hand on the handle and paused. She did not speak. Then
+he looked at her again. Her head had fallen back against a cushion and
+her eyes were half closed. He waited a second and a keen pain shot
+through him. Perhaps she was in earnest after all. In an instant he had
+recrossed the room and was on his knees beside her trying to take her
+hands.
+
+"Consuelo--darling--you do not really mean it! You cannot, you will
+not--"
+
+He covered her hands with kisses and pressed them to his heart. For a
+few moments she made no movement, but her eyelids quivered. Then she
+sprang to her feet, pushing him back violently as he rose with her, and
+turning her face from him.
+
+"Go--go!" she cried wildly. "Go--let me never see you again--never,
+never!"
+
+Before he could stop her, she had passed him with a rush like a swallow
+on the wing and was gone from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Orsino was not in an enviable frame of mind when he left the hotel. It
+is easier to bear suffering when one clearly understands all its causes,
+and distinguishes just how great a part of it is inevitable and how
+great a part may be avoided or mitigated. In the present case there was
+much in the situation which it passed his power to analyse or
+comprehend. He still possessed the taste for discovering motives in the
+actions of others as well as in his own, but many months of a busy life
+had dulled the edge of the artificial logic in which he had formerly
+delighted, while greatly sharpening his practical wit. Artificial
+analysis supplies from the imagination the details lacking in facts, but
+common sense needs something more tangible upon which to work. Orsino
+felt that the chief circumstance which had determined Maria Consuelo's
+conduct had escaped him, and he sought in vain to detect it.
+
+He rejected the supposition that she was acting upon a caprice, that she
+had yesterday believed it possible to marry him, while a change of
+humour made marriage seem out of the question to-day. She was as
+capricious as most women, perhaps, but not enough so for that. Besides,
+she had been really consistent. Not even yesterday had she been shaken
+for a moment in her resolution not to be Orsino's wife. To-day had
+confirmed yesterday therefore. However Orsino might have still doubted
+her intention when he had gone to her side for the last time, her
+behaviour then and her final words had been unmistakable. She meant to
+leave Rome at once.
+
+Yet the reasons she had given him for her conduct were not sufficient in
+his eyes. The difference of age was so small that it could safely be
+disregarded. Her promise to the dying Aranjuez was an engagement, he
+thought, by which no person of sense should expect her to abide. As for
+the question of her birth, he relied on that speech of Spicca's which he
+so well remembered. Spicca might have spoken the words thoughtlessly, it
+was true, and believing that Orsino would never, under any circumstances
+whatever, think seriously of marrying Maria Consuelo. But Spicca was not
+a man who often spoke carelessly, and what he said generally meant at
+least as much as it appeared to mean.
+
+It was doubtless true that Maria Consuelo was ignorant of her mother's
+name. Nevertheless, it was quite possible that her mother had been
+Spicca's wife. Spicca's life was said to be full of strange events not
+generally known. But though his daughter might, and doubtless did
+believe herself a nameless child, and, as such, no match for the heir
+of the Saracinesca, Orsino could not see why she should have insisted
+upon a parting so sudden, so painful and so premature. She knew as much
+yesterday and had known it all along. Why, if she possessed such
+strength of character, had she allowed matters to go so far when she
+could easily have interrupted the course of events at an earlier period?
+He did not admit that she perhaps loved him so much as to have been
+carried away by her passion until she found herself on the point of
+doing him an injury by marrying him, and that her love was strong enough
+to induce her to sacrifice herself at the critical moment. Though he
+loved her much he did not believe her to be heroic in any way. On the
+contrary, he said to himself that if she were sincere, and if her love
+were at all like his own, she would let no obstacle stand in the way of
+it. To him, the test of love must be its utter recklessness. He could
+not believe that a still better test may be, and is, the constant
+forethought for the object of love, and the determination to protect
+that object from all danger in the present and from all suffering in the
+future, no matter at what cost.
+
+Perhaps it is not easy to believe that recklessness is a manifestation
+of the second degree of passion, while the highest shows itself in
+painful sacrifice. Yet the most daring act of chivalry never called for
+half the bravery shown by many a martyr at the stake, and if courage be
+a measure of true passion, the passion which will face life-long
+suffering to save its object from unhappiness or degradation is greater
+than the passion which, for the sake of possessing its object, drags it
+into danger and the risk of ruin. It may be that all this is untrue, and
+that the action of these two imaginary individuals, the one sacrificing
+himself, the other endangering the loved one, is dependent upon the
+balance of the animal, intellectual and moral elements in each. We do
+not know much about the causes of what we feel, in spite of modern
+analysis; but the heart rarely deceives us, when we can see the truth
+for ourselves, into bestowing the more praise upon the less brave of two
+deeds. But we do not often see the truth as it is. We know little of the
+lives of others, but we are apt to think that other people understand
+our own very well, including our good deeds if we have done any, and we
+expect full measure of credit for these, and the utmost allowance of
+charity for our sins. In other words we desire our neighbour to combine
+a power of forgiveness almost divine with a capacity for flattery more
+than parasitic. That is why we are not easily satisfied with our
+acquaintances and that is why our friends do not always turn out to be
+truthful persons. We ask too much for the low price we offer, and if we
+insist we get the imitation.
+
+Orsino loved Maria Consuelo with all his heart, as much as a young man
+of little more than one and twenty can love the first woman to whom he
+is seriously attached. There was nothing heroic in the passion, perhaps,
+nothing which could ultimately lead to great results. But it was a
+strong love, nevertheless, with much, of devotion in it and some latent
+violence. If he did not marry Maria Consuelo, it was not likely that he
+would ever love again in exactly the same way. His next love would be
+either far better or far worse, far nobler or far baser--perhaps a
+little less human in either case.
+
+He walked slowly away from the hotel, unconscious of the people in the
+street and not thinking of the direction he took. His brain was in a
+whirl and his thoughts seemed to revolve round some central point upon
+which they could not concentrate themselves even for a second. The only
+thing of which he was sure was that Maria Consuelo had taken herself
+from him suddenly and altogether, leaving him with a sense of loneliness
+which he had not known before. He had gone to her in considerable
+distress about his affairs, with the certainty of finding sympathy and
+perhaps advice. He came away, as some men have returned from a grave
+accident, apparently unscathed it may be, but temporarily deprived of
+some one sense, of sight, or hearing, or touch. He was not sure that he
+was awake, and his troubled reflexions came back by the same unvarying
+round to the point he had reached the first time--if Maria Consuelo
+really loved him, she would not let such obstacles as she spoke of
+hinder her union with him.
+
+For a time Orsino was not conscious of any impulse to act. Gradually,
+however, his real nature asserted itself, and he remembered how he had
+told her not long ago that if she went away he would follow her, and how
+he had said that the world was small and that he would soon find her
+again. It would undoubtedly be a simple matter to accompany her, if she
+left Rome. He could easily ascertain the hour of her intended departure
+and that alone would tell him the direction she had chosen. When she
+found that she had not escaped him she would very probably give up the
+attempt and come back, her humour would change and his own eloquence
+would do the rest.
+
+He stopped in his walk, looked at his watch and glanced about him. He
+was at some distance from the hotel and it was growing dusk, for the
+days were already short. If Maria Consuelo really meant to leave Rome
+precipitately, she might go by the evening train to Paris and in that
+case the people of the hotel would have been informed of her intended
+departure.
+
+Orsino only admitted the possibility of her actually going away while
+believing in his heart that she would remain. He slowly retraced his
+steps, and it was seven o'clock before he asked the hotel porter by what
+train Madame d'Aranjuez was leaving. The porter did not know whether the
+lady was going north or south, but he called another man, who went in
+search of a third, who disappeared for some time.
+
+"Is it sure that Madame d'Aranjuez goes to-night?" asked Orsino trying
+to look indifferent.
+
+"Quite sure. Her rooms will be free to-morrow."
+
+Orsino turned away and slowly paced up and down the marble pavement
+between the tall plants, waiting for the messenger to come back.
+
+"Madame d'Aranjuez leaves at nine forty-five," said the man, suddenly
+reappearing.
+
+Orsino hesitated a moment, and then made up his mind.
+
+"Ask Madame if she will receive me for a moment," he said, producing a
+card.
+
+The servant went away and again Orsino walked backwards and forwards,
+pale now and very nervous. She was really going, and was going
+north--probably to Paris.
+
+"Madame regrets infinitely that she is not able to receive the Signor
+Prince," said the man in black at Orsino's elbow. "She is making her
+preparations for the journey."
+
+"Show me where I can write a note," said Orsino, who had expected the
+answer.
+
+He was shown into the reading-room and writing materials were set before
+him. He hurriedly wrote a few words to Maria Consuelo, without form of
+address and without signature.
+
+"I will not let you go without me. If you will not see me, I will be in
+the train, and I will not leave you, wherever you go. I am in earnest."
+
+He looked at the sheet of note-paper and wondered that he should find
+nothing more to say. But he had said all he meant, and sealing the
+little note he sent it up to Maria Consuelo with a request for an
+immediate answer. Just then the dinner bell of the hotel was rung. The
+reading-room was deserted. He waited five minutes, then ten, nervously
+turning over the newspapers and reviews on the long table, but quite
+unable to read even the printed titles. He rang and asked if there had
+been no answer to his note. The man was the same whom he had sent
+before. He said the note had been received at the door by the maid who
+had said that Madame d'Aranjuez would ring when her answer was ready.
+Orsino dismissed the servant and waited again. It crossed his mind that
+the maid might have pocketed the note and said nothing about it, for
+reasons of her own. He had almost determined to go upstairs and boldly
+enter the sitting-room, when the door opposite to him opened and Maria
+Consuelo herself appeared.
+
+She was dressed in a dark close-fitting travelling costume, but she wore
+no hat. Her face was quite colourless and looked if possible even more
+unnaturally pale by contrast with her bright auburn hair. She shut the
+door behind her and stood still, facing Orsino in the glare of the
+electric lights.
+
+"I did not mean to see you again," she said, slowly. "You have forced me
+to it."
+
+Orsino made a step forward and tried to take her hand, but she drew
+back. The slight uncertainty often visible in the direction of her
+glance had altogether disappeared and her eyes met Orsino's directly and
+fearlessly.
+
+"Yes," he answered. "I have forced you to it. I know it, and you cannot
+reproach me if I have. I will not leave you. I am going with you
+wherever you go."
+
+He spoke calmly, considering the great emotion he felt, and there was a
+quiet determination in his words and tone which told how much he was in
+earnest. Maria Consuelo half believed that she could dominate him by
+sheer force of will, and she would not give up the idea, even now.
+
+"You will not go with me, you will not even attempt it," she said.
+
+It would have been difficult to guess from her face at that moment that
+she loved him. Her face was pale and the expression was almost hard. She
+held her head high as though she were looking down at him, though he
+towered above her from his shoulders.
+
+"You do not understand me," he answered, quietly. "When I say that I
+will go with you, I mean that I will go."
+
+"Is this a trial of strength?" she asked after a moment's pause.
+
+"If it is, I am not conscious of it. It costs me no effort to go--it
+would cost me much to stay behind--too much."
+
+He stood quite still before her, looking steadily into her eyes. There
+was a short silence, and then she suddenly looked down, moved and turned
+away, beginning to walk slowly about. The room was large, and he paced
+the floor beside her, looking down at her bent head.
+
+"Will you stay if I ask you to?"
+
+The question came in a lower and softer tone than she had used before.
+
+"I will go with you," answered Orsino as firmly as ever.
+
+"Will you do nothing for my asking?"
+
+"I will do anything but that."
+
+"But that is all I ask."
+
+"You are asking the impossible."
+
+"There are many reasons why you should not come with me. Have you
+thought of them all?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You should. You ought to know, without being told by me, that you would
+be doing me a great injustice and a great injury in following me. You
+ought to know what the world will say of it. Remember that I am alone."
+
+"I will marry you."
+
+"I have told you that it is impossible--no, do not answer me! I will not
+go over all that again. I am going away to-night. That is the principal
+thing--the only thing that concerns you. Of course, if you choose, you
+can get into the same train and pursue me to the end of the world. I
+cannot prevent you. I thought I could, but I was mistaken. I am alone.
+Remember that, Orsino. You know as well as I what will be said--and the
+fact is sure to be known."
+
+"People will say that I am following you--"
+
+"They will say that we are gone together, for every one will have reason
+to say it. Do you suppose that nobody is aware of our--our intimacy
+during the last month?"
+
+"Why not say our love?"
+
+"Because I hope no one knows of that--well, if they do--Orsino, be kind!
+Let me go alone--as a man of honour, do not injure me by leaving Rome
+with me, nor by following me when I am gone!"
+
+She stopped and looked up into his face with an imploring glance. To
+tell the truth, Orsino had not foreseen that she might appeal to his
+honour, alleging the danger to her reputation. He bit his lip and
+avoided her eyes. It was hard to yield, and to yield so quickly, as it
+seemed to him.
+
+"How long will you stay away?" he asked in a constrained voice.
+
+"I shall not come back at all."
+
+He wondered at the firmness of her tone and manner. Whatever the real
+ground of her resolution might be, the resolution itself had gained
+strength since they had parted little more than an hour earlier. The
+belief suddenly grew upon him again that she did not love him.
+
+"Why are you going at all?" he asked abruptly. "If you loved me at all,
+you would stay."
+
+She drew a sharp breath and clasped her hands nervously together.
+
+"I should stay if I loved you less. But I have told you--I will not go
+over it all again. This must end--this saying good-bye! It is easier to
+end it at once."
+
+"Easier for you--"
+
+"You do not know what you are saying. You will know some day. If you can
+bear this, I cannot."
+
+"Then stay--if you love me, as you say you do."
+
+"As I say I do!"
+
+Her eyes grew very grave and sad as she stopped and looked at him again.
+Then she held out both her hands.
+
+"I am going, now. Good-bye."
+
+The blood came back to Orsino's face. It seemed to him that he had
+reached the crisis of his life and his instinct was to struggle hard
+against his fate. With a quick movement he caught her in his arms,
+lifting her from her feet and pressing her close to him.
+
+"You shall not go!"
+
+He kissed her passionately again and again, while she fought to be free,
+straining at his arms with her small white hands and trying to turn her
+face from him.
+
+"Why do you struggle? It is of no use." He spoke in very soft deep
+tones, close to her ear.
+
+She shook her head desperately and still did her best to slip from him,
+though she might as well have tried to break iron clamps with her
+fingers.
+
+"It is of no use," he repeated, pressing her still more closely to him.
+
+"Let me go!" she cried, making a violent effort, as fruitless as the
+last.
+
+"No!"
+
+Then she was quite still, realising that she had no chance with him.
+
+"Is it manly to be brutal because you are strong?" she asked. "You hurt
+me."
+
+Orsino's arms relaxed, and he let her go. She drew a long breath and
+moved a step backward and towards the door.
+
+"Good-bye," she said again. But this time she did not hold out her hand,
+though she looked long and fixedly into his face.
+
+Orsino made a movement as though he would have caught her again. She
+started and put out her hand behind her towards the latch. But he did
+not touch her. She softly opened the door, looked at him once more and
+went out.
+
+When he realised that she was gone he sprang after her, calling her by
+name.
+
+"Consuelo!"
+
+There were a few people walking in the broad passage. They stared at
+Orsino, but he did not heed them as he passed by. Maria Consuelo was not
+there, and he understood in a moment that it would be useless to seek
+her further. He stood still a moment, entered the reading-room again,
+got his hat and left the hotel without looking behind him.
+
+All sorts of wild ideas and schemes flashed through his brain, each more
+absurd and impracticable than the last. He thought of going back and
+finding Maria Consuelo's maid--he might bribe her to prevent her
+mistress's departure. He thought of offering the driver of the train an
+enormous sum to do some injury to his engine before reaching the first
+station out of Rome. He thought of stopping Maria Consuelo's carriage on
+her way to the tram and taking her by main force to his father's house.
+If she were compromised in such a way, she would be almost obliged to
+marry him. He afterwards wondered at the stupidity of his own inventions
+on that evening, but at the time nothing looked impossible.
+
+He bethought him of Spicca. Perhaps the old man possessed some power
+over his daughter after all and could prevent her flight if he chose.
+There were yet nearly two hours left before the train started. If worst
+came to worst, Orsino could still get to the station at the last minute
+and leave Rome with her.
+
+He took a passing cab and drove to Spicca's lodgings. The count was at
+home, writing a letter by the light of a small lamp. He looked up in
+surprise as Orsino entered, then rose and offered him a chair.
+
+"What has happened, my friend?" he asked, glancing curiously at the
+young man's face.
+
+"Everything," answered Orsino. "I love Madame d'Aranjuez, she loves me,
+she absolutely refuses to marry me and she is going to Paris at a
+quarter to ten. I know she is your daughter and I want you to prevent
+her from leaving. That is all, I believe."
+
+Spicca's cadaverous face did not change, but the hollow eyes grew bright
+and fixed their glance on an imaginary point at an immense distance, and
+the thin hand that lay on the edge of the table closed slowly upon the
+projecting wood. For a few moments he said nothing, but when he spoke he
+seemed quite calm.
+
+"If she has told you that she is my daughter," he said, "I presume that
+she has told you the rest. Is that true?"
+
+Orsino was impatient for Spicca to take some immediate action, but he
+understood that the count had a right to ask the question.
+
+"She has told me that she does not know her mother's name, and that you
+killed her husband."
+
+"Both these statements are perfectly true at all events. Is that all you
+know?"
+
+"All? Yes--all of importance. But there is no time to be lost. No one
+but you can prevent her from leaving Rome to-night. You must help me
+quickly."
+
+Spicca looked gravely at Orsino and shook his head. The light that had
+shone in his eyes for a moment was gone, and he was again his habitual,
+melancholy, indifferent self.
+
+"I cannot stop her," he said, almost listlessly.
+
+"But you can--you will, you must!" cried Orsino laying a hand on the old
+man's thin arm. "She must not go--"
+
+"Better that she should, after all. Of what use is it for her to stay?
+She is quite right. You cannot marry her."
+
+"Cannot marry her? Why not? It is not long since you told me very
+plainly that you wished I would marry her. You have changed your mind
+very suddenly, it seems to me, and I would like to know why. Do you
+remember all you said to me?"
+
+"Yes, and I was in earnest, as I am now. And I was wrong in telling you
+what I thought at the time."
+
+"At the time! How can matters have changed so suddenly?"
+
+"I do not say that matters have changed. I have. That is the important
+thing. I remember the occasion of our conversation very well. Madame
+d'Aranjuez had been rather abrupt with, me, and you and I went away
+together. I forgave her easily enough, for I saw that she was
+unhappy--then I thought how different her life might be if she were
+married to you. I also wished to convey to you a warning, and it did not
+strike me that you would ever seriously contemplate such a marriage."
+
+"I think you are in a certain way responsible for the present
+situation," answered Orsino. "That is the reason why I come to you for
+help."
+
+Spicca turned upon the young man rather suddenly.
+
+"There you go too far," he said. "Do you mean to tell me that you have
+asked that lady to marry you because I suggested it?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Then I am not responsible at all. Besides, you might have consulted me
+again, if you had chosen. I have not been out of town. I sincerely wish
+that it were possible--yes, that is quite another matter. But it is not.
+If Madame d'Aranjuez thinks it is not, from her point of view there are
+a thousand reasons why I should consider it far more completely out of
+the question. As for preventing her from leaving Rome I could not do
+that even were I willing to try."
+
+"Then I will go with her," said Orsino, angrily.
+
+Spicca looked at him in silence for a few moments. Orsino rose to his
+feet and prepared to go.
+
+"You leave me no choice," he said, as though Spicca had protested.
+
+"Because I cannot and will not stop her? Is that any reason why you
+should compromise her reputation as you propose to do?"
+
+"It is the best of reasons. She will marry me then, out of necessity."
+
+Spicca rose also, with more alacrity than generally characterised his
+movements. He stood before the empty fireplace, watching the young man
+narrowly.
+
+"It is not a good reason," he said, presently, in quiet tones. "You are
+not the man to do that sort of thing. You are too honourable."
+
+"I do not see anything dishonourable in following the woman I love."
+
+"That depends on the way in which you follow her. If you go quietly home
+to-night and write to your father that you have decided to go to Paris
+for a few days and will leave to-morrow, if you make your arrangements
+like a sensible being and go away like a sane man, I have nothing to say
+in the matter--"
+
+"I presume not--" interrupted Orsino, facing the old man somewhat
+fiercely.
+
+"Very well. We will not quarrel yet. We will reserve that pleasure for
+the moment when you cease to understand me. That way of following her
+would be bad enough, but no one would have any right to stop you."
+
+"No one has any right to stop me, as it is."
+
+"I beg your pardon. The present circumstances are different. In the
+first instance the world would say that you were in love with Madame
+d'Aranjuez and were pursuing her to press your suit--of whatever nature
+that might be. In the second case the world will assert that you and
+she, not meaning to be married, have adopted the simple plan of going
+away together. That implies her consent, and you have no right to let
+any one imply that. I say, it is not honourable to let people think that
+a lady is risking her reputation for you and perhaps sacrificing it
+altogether, when she is in reality trying to escape from you. Am I
+right, or not?"
+
+"You are ingenious, at all events. You talk as though the whole world
+were to know in half an hour that I have gone to Paris in the same train
+with Madame d'Aranjuez. That is absurd!"
+
+"Is it? I think not. Half an hour is little, perhaps, but half a day is
+enough. You are not an insignificant son of an unknown Roman citizen,
+nor is Madame d'Aranjuez a person who passes unnoticed. Reporters watch
+people like you for items of news, and you are perfectly well known by
+sight. Apart from that, do you think that your servants will not tell
+your friends' servants of your sudden departure, or that Madame
+d'Aranjuez' going will not be observed? You ought to know Rome better
+than that. I ask you again, am I right or wrong?"
+
+"What difference will it make, if we are married immediately?"
+
+"She will never marry you. I am convinced of that."
+
+"How can you know? Has she spoken to you about it?"
+
+"I am the last person to whom she would come."
+
+"Her own father--"
+
+"With limitations. Besides, I had the misfortune to deprive her of the
+chosen companion of her life, and at a critical moment. She has not
+forgotten that."
+
+"No she has not," answered Orsino gloomily. The memory of Aranjuez was a
+sore point. "Why did you kill him?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Because he was an adventurer, a liar and a thief--three excellent
+reasons for killing any man, if one can. Moreover he struck her
+once--with that silver paper cutter which she insists on using--and I
+saw it from a distance. Then I killed him. Unluckily I was very angry
+and made a little mistake, so that he lived twelve hours, and she had
+time to get a priest and marry him. She always pretends that he struck
+her in play, by accident, as he was showing her something about fencing.
+I was in the next room and the door was open--it did not look like play.
+And she still thinks that he was the paragon of all virtues. He was a
+handsome devil--something like you, but shorter, with a bad eye. I am
+glad I killed him."
+
+Spicca had looked steadily at Orsino while speaking. When he ceased, he
+began to walk about the small room with something of his old energy.
+Orsino roused himself. He had almost begun to forget his own position in
+the interest of listening to the count's short story.
+
+"So much for Aranjuez," said Spicca. "Let us hear no more of him. As for
+this mad plan of yours, you are convinced, I suppose, and you will give
+it up. Go home and decide in the morning. For my part, I tell you it is
+useless. She will not marry you. Therefore leave her alone and do
+nothing which can injure her."
+
+"I am not convinced," answered Orsino doggedly.
+
+"Then you are not your father's son. No Saracinesca that I ever knew
+would do what you mean to do--would wantonly tarnish the good name of a
+woman--of a woman who loves him too--and whose only fault is that she
+cannot marry him."
+
+"That she will not."
+
+"That she cannot."
+
+"Do you give me your word that she cannot?"
+
+"She is legally free to marry whom she pleases, with or without my
+consent."
+
+"That is all I want to know. The rest is nothing to me--"
+
+"The rest is a great deal. I beg you to consider all I have said, and I
+am sure that you will, quite sure. There are very good reasons for not
+telling you or any one else all the details I know in this story--so
+good that I would rather go to the length of a quarrel with you than
+give them all. I am an old man, Orsino, and what is left of life does
+not mean much to me. I will sacrifice it to prevent your opening this
+door unless you tell me that you give up the idea of leaving Rome
+to-night."
+
+As he spoke he placed himself before the closed door and faced the young
+man. He was old, emaciated, physically broken down, and his hands were
+empty. Orsino was in his first youth, tall, lean, active and very
+strong, and no coward. He was moreover in an ugly humour and inclined to
+be violent on much smaller provocation than he had received. But Spicca
+imposed upon him, nevertheless, for he saw that he was in earnest.
+Orsino was never afterwards able to recall exactly what passed through
+his mind at that moment. He was physically able to thrust Spicca aside
+and to open the door, without so much as hurting him. He did not
+believe that, even in that case, the old man would have insisted upon
+the satisfaction of arms, nor would he have been afraid to meet him if a
+duel had been required. He knew that what withheld him from an act of
+violence was neither fear nor respect for his adversary's weakness and
+age. Yet he was quite unable to define the influence which at last broke
+down his resolution. It was in all probability only the resultant of the
+argument Spicca had brought to bear and which Maria Consuelo had herself
+used in the first instance, and of Spicca's calm, undaunted personality.
+
+The crisis did not last long. The two men faced each other for ten
+seconds and then Orsino turned away with an impatient movement of the
+shoulders.
+
+"Very well," he said. "I will not go with her."
+
+"It is best so," answered Spicca, leaving the door and returning to his
+seat.
+
+"I suppose that she will let you know where she is, will she not?" asked
+Orsino.
+
+"Yes. She will write to me."
+
+"Good-night, then."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+Without shaking hands, and almost without a glance at the old man,
+Orsino left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Orsino walked slowly homeward, trying to collect his thoughts and to
+reach some distinct determination with regard to the future. He was
+oppressed by the sense of failure and disappointment and felt inclined
+to despise himself for his weakness in yielding so easily. To all
+intents and purposes he had lost Maria Consuelo, and if he had not lost
+her through his own fault, he had at least tamely abandoned what had
+seemed like a last chance of winning her back. As he thought of all that
+had happened he tried to fix some point in the past, at which he might
+have acted differently, and from which another act of consequence might
+have begun. But that was not easy. Events had followed each other with a
+certain inevitable logic, which only looked unreasonable because he
+suspected the existence of facts beyond his certain knowledge. His great
+mistake had been in going to Spicca, but nothing could have been more
+natural, under the circumstances, than his appeal to Maria Consuelo's
+father, nothing more unexpected than the latter's determined refusal to
+help him. That there was weight in the argument used by both Spicca and
+Maria Consuelo herself, he could not deny; but he failed to see why the
+marriage was so utterly impossible as they both declared it to be. There
+must be much more behind the visible circumstances than he could guess.
+
+He tried to comfort himself with the assurance that he could leave Rome
+on the following day, and that Spicca would not refuse to give him Maria
+Consuelo's address in Paris. But the consolation he derived from the
+idea was small. He found himself wondering at the recklessness shown by
+the woman he loved in escaping from him. His practical Italian mind
+could hardly understand how she could have changed all her plans in a
+moment, abandoning her half-furnished apartment without a word of notice
+even to the workmen, throwing over her intention of spending the winter
+in Rome as though she had not already spent many thousands in preparing
+her dwelling, and going away, probably, without as much as leaving a
+representative to wind up her accounts. It may seem strange that a man
+as much in love as Orsino was should think of such details at such a
+moment. Perhaps he looked upon them rather as proofs that she meant to
+come back after all; in any case he thought of them seriously, and even
+calculated roughly the sum she would be sacrificing if she stayed away.
+
+Beyond all he felt the dismal loneliness which a man can only feel when
+he is suddenly and effectually parted from the woman he dearly loves,
+and which is not like any other sensation of which the human heart is
+capable.
+
+More than once, up to the last possible moment, he was tempted to drive
+to the station and leave with Maria Consuelo after all, but he would not
+break the promise he had given Spicca, no matter how weak he had been in
+giving it.
+
+On reaching his home he was informed, to his great surprise, that San
+Giacinto was waiting to see him. He could not remember that his cousin
+had ever before honoured him with a visit and he wondered what could
+have brought him now and induced him to wait, just at the hour when most
+people were at dinner.
+
+The giant was reading the evening paper, with the help of a particularly
+strong cigar.
+
+"I am glad you have come home," he said, rising and taking the young
+man's outstretched hand. "I should have waited until you did."
+
+"Has anything happened?" asked Orsino nervously. It struck him that San
+Giacinto might be the bearer of some bad news about his people, and the
+grave expression on the strongly marked face helped the idea.
+
+"A great deal is happening. The crash has begun. You must get out of
+your business in less than three days if you can."
+
+Orsino drew a breath of relief at first, and then grew grave in his
+turn, realising that unless matters were very serious such a man as San
+Giacinto would not put himself to the inconvenience of coming. San
+Giacinto was little given to offering advice unasked, still less to
+interfering in the affairs of others.
+
+"I understand," said Orsino. "You think that everything is going to
+pieces. I see."
+
+The big man looked at his young cousin with something like pity.
+
+"If I only suspected, or thought--as you put it--that there was to be a
+collapse of business, I should not have taken the trouble to warn you.
+The crash has actually begun. If you can save yourself, do so at once."
+
+"I think I can," answered the young man, bravely. But he did not at all
+see how his salvation was to be accomplished. "Can you tell me a little
+more definitely what is the matter? Have there been any more failures
+to-day?"
+
+"My brother-in-law Montevarchi is on the point of stopping payment,"
+said San Giacinto calmly.
+
+"Montevarchi!"
+
+Orsino did not conceal his astonishment.
+
+"Yes. Do not speak of it. And he is in precisely the same position, so
+far as I can judge of your affairs, as you yourself, though of course he
+has dealt with sums ten times as great. He will make enormous sacrifices
+and will pay, I suppose, after all. But he will be quite ruined. He also
+has worked with Del Fence's bank."
+
+"And the bank refuses to discount any more of his paper?"
+
+"Precisely. Since this afternoon."
+
+"Then it will refuse to discount mine to-morrow."
+
+"Have you acceptances due to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes--not much, but enough to make the trouble. It will be Saturday,
+too, and we must have money for the workmen."
+
+"Have you not even enough in reserve for that?"
+
+"Perhaps. I cannot tell. Besides, if the bank refuses to renew I cannot
+draw a cheque."
+
+"I am sorry for you. If I had known yesterday how near the end was, I
+would have warned you."
+
+"Thanks. I am grateful as it is. Can you give me any advice?"
+
+Orsino had a vague idea that his rich cousin would generously propose to
+help him out of his difficulties. He was not quite sure whether he could
+bring himself to accept such assistance, but he more than half expected
+that it would be offered. In this, however, he was completely mistaken.
+San Giacinto had not the smallest intention of offering anything more
+substantial than his opinion. Considering that his wife's brother's
+liabilities amounted to something like five and twenty millions, this
+was not surprising. The giant bit his cigar and folded his long arms
+over his enormous chest, leaning back in the easy chair which creaked
+under his weight.
+
+"You have tried yourself in business by this time, Orsino," he said,
+"and you know as well as I what there is to be done. You have three
+modes of action open to you. You can fail. It is a simple affair enough.
+The bank will take your buildings for what they will be worth a few
+months hence, on the day of liquidation. There will be a big deficit,
+which your father will pay for you and deduct from your share of the
+division at his death. That is one plan, and seems to me the best. It is
+perfectly honourable, and you lose by it. Secondly, you can go to your
+father to-morrow and ask him to lend you money to meet your acceptances
+and to continue the work until the houses are finished and can be sold.
+They will ultimately go for a quarter of their value, if you can sell
+them at all within the year, and you will be in your father's debt,
+exactly as in the other case. You would avoid the publicity of a
+failure, but it would cost you more, because the houses will not be
+worth much more when they are finished than they are now."
+
+"And the third plan--what is it?" inquired Orsino.
+
+"The third way is this. You can go to Del Ferice, and if you are a
+diplomatist you may persuade him that it is in his interest not to let
+you fail. I do not think you will succeed, but you can try. If he agrees
+it will be because he counts on your father to pay in the end, but it is
+questionable whether Del Ferice's bank can afford to let out any more
+cash at the present moment. Money is going to be very tight, as they
+say."
+
+Orsino smoked in silence, pondering over the situation. San Giacinto
+rose.
+
+"You are warned, at all events," he said. "You will find a great change
+for the worse in the general aspect of things to-morrow."
+
+"I am much obliged for the warning," answered Orsino. "I suppose I can
+always find you if I need your advice--and you will advise me?"
+
+"You are welcome to my advice, such as it is, my dear boy. But as for
+me, I am going towards Naples to-night on business, and I may not be
+back again for a day or two. If you get into serious trouble before I am
+here again, you should go to your father at once. He knows nothing of
+business, and has been sensible enough to keep out of it. The
+consequence is that he is as rich as ever, and he would sacrifice a
+great deal rather than see your name dragged into the publicity of a
+failure. Good-night, and good luck to you."
+
+Thereupon the Titan shook Orsino's hand in his mighty grip and went
+away. As a matter of fact he was going down to look over one of
+Montevarchi's biggest estates with a view to buying it in the coming
+cataclysm, but it would not have been like him to communicate the
+smallest of his intentions to Orsino, or to any one, not excepting his
+wife and his lawyer.
+
+Orsino was left to his own devices and meditations. A servant came in
+and inquired whether he wished to dine at home, and he ordered strong
+coffee by way of a meal. He was at the age when a man expects to find a
+way out of his difficulties in an artificial excitement of the nerves.
+
+Indeed, he had enough to disturb him, for it seemed as though all
+possible misfortunes had fallen upon him at once. He had suffered on the
+same day the greatest shock to his heart, and the greatest blow to his
+vanity which he could conceive possible. Maria Consuelo was gone and the
+failure of his business was apparently inevitable. When he tried to
+review the three plans which San Giacinto had suggested, he found
+himself suddenly thinking of the woman he loved and making schemes for
+following her; but so soon as he had transported himself in imagination
+to her side and was beginning to hope that he might win her back, he
+was torn away and plunged again into the whirlpool of business at home,
+struggling with unheard of difficulties and sinking deeper at every
+stroke.
+
+A hundred times he rose from his chair and paced the floor impatiently,
+and a hundred times he threw himself down again, overcome by the
+hopelessness of the situation. Occasionally he found a little comfort in
+the reflexion that the night could not last for ever. When the day came
+he would be driven to act, in one way or another, and he would be
+obliged to consult his partner, Contini. Then at last his mind would be
+able to follow one connected train of thought for a time, and he would
+get rest of some kind.
+
+Little by little, however, and long before the day dawned, the
+dominating influence asserted itself above the secondary one and he was
+thinking only of Maria Consuelo. Throughout all that night she was
+travelling, as she would perhaps travel throughout all the next day and
+the second night succeeding that. For she was strong and having once
+determined upon the journey would very probably go to the end of it
+without stopping to rest. He wondered whether she too were waking
+through all those long hours, thinking of what she had left behind, or
+whether she had closed her eyes and found the peace of sleep for which
+he longed in vain. He thought of her face, softly lighted by the dim
+lamp of the railway carriage, and fancied he could actually see it with
+the delicate shadows, the subdued richness of colour, the settled look
+of sadness. When the picture grew dim, he recalled it by a strong
+effort, though he knew that each time it rose before his eyes he must
+feel the same sharp thrust of pain, followed by the same dull wave of
+hopeless misery which had ebbed and flowed again so many times since he
+had parted from her.
+
+At last he roused himself, looked about him as though he were in a
+strange place, lighted a candle and betook himself to his own quarters.
+It was very late, and he was more tired than he knew, for in spite of
+all his troubles he fell asleep and did not awake till the sun was
+streaming into the room.
+
+Some one knocked at the door, and a servant announced that Signor
+Contini was waiting to see Don Orsino. The man's face expressed a sort
+of servile surprise when he saw that Orsino had not undressed for the
+night and had been sleeping on the divan. He began to busy himself with
+the toilet things as though expecting Orsino to take some thought for
+his appearance. But the latter was anxious to see Contini at once, and
+sent for him.
+
+The architect was evidently very much disturbed. He was as pale as
+though he had just recovered from a long illness and he seemed to have
+grown suddenly emaciated during the night. He spoke in a low, excited
+tone.
+
+In substance he told Orsino what San Giacinto had said on the previous
+evening. Things looked very black indeed, and Del Ferice's bank had
+refused to discount any more of Prince Montevarchi's paper.
+
+"And we must have money to-day," Contini concluded.
+
+When he had finished speaking his excitement disappeared and he relapsed
+into the utmost dejection. Orsino remained silent for some time and then
+lit a cigarette.
+
+"You need not be so down-hearted, Contini," he said at last. "I shall
+not have any difficulty in getting money--you know that. What I feel
+most is the moral failure."
+
+"What is the moral failure to me?" asked Contini gloomily. "It is all
+very well to talk of getting money. The bank will shut its tills like a
+steel trap and to-day is Saturday, and there are the workmen and others
+to be paid, and several bills due into the bargain. Of course your
+family can give you millions--in time. But we need cash to-day. That is
+the trouble."
+
+"I suppose the state telegraph is not destroyed because Prince
+Montevarchi cannot meet his acceptances," observed Orsino. "And I
+imagine that our steward here in the house has enough cash for our
+needs, and will not hesitate to hand it to me if he receives a telegram
+from my father ordering him to do so. Whether he has enough to take up
+the bills or not, I do not know; but as to-day is Saturday we have all
+day to-morrow to make arrangements. I could even go out to Saracinesca
+and be back on Monday morning when the bank opens."
+
+"You seem to take a hopeful view."
+
+"I have not the least hope of saving the business. But the question of
+ready money does not of itself disturb me."
+
+This was undoubtedly true, but it was also undeniable that Orsino now
+looked upon the prospect of failure with more equanimity than on the
+previous evening. On the other hand he felt even more keenly than before
+all the pain of his sudden separation from Maria Consuelo. When a man is
+assailed, by several misfortunes at once, twenty-four hours are
+generally enough to sift the small from the great and to show him
+plainly which is the greatest of all.
+
+"What shall we do this morning?" inquired Contini.
+
+"You ask the question as though you were going to propose a picnic,"
+answered Orsino. "I do not see why this morning need be so different
+from other mornings."
+
+"We must stop the works instantly--"
+
+"Why? At all events we will change nothing until we find out the real
+state of business. The first thing to be done is to go to the bank as
+usual on Saturdays. We shall then know exactly what to do."
+
+Contini shook his head gloomily and went away to wait in another room
+while Orsino dressed. An hour later they were at the bank. Contini grew
+paler than ever. The head clerk would of course inform them that no more
+bills would be discounted, and that they must meet those already out
+when they fell due. He would also tell them that the credit balance of
+their account current would not be at their disposal until their
+acceptances were met. Orsino would probably at last believe that the
+situation was serious, though he now looked so supremely and scornfully
+indifferent to events.
+
+They waited some time. Several men were engaged in earnest conversation,
+and their faces told plainly enough that they were in trouble. The head
+clerk was standing with them, and made a sign to Orsino, signifying that
+they would soon go. Orsino watched him. From time to time he shook his
+head and made gestures which indicated his utter inability to do
+anything for them. Contini's courage sank lower and lower.
+
+"I will ask for Del Ferice at once," said Orsino.
+
+He accordingly sought out one of the men who wore the bank's livery and
+told him to take his card to the count.
+
+"The Signor Commendatore is not coming this morning," answered the man
+mysteriously.
+
+Orsino went back to the head clerk, interrupting his conversation with
+the others. He inquired if it were true that Del Ferice were not coming.
+
+"It is not probable," answered the clerk with a grave face. "They say
+that the Signora Contessa is not likely to live through the day."
+
+"Is Donna Tullia ill?" asked Orsino in considerable astonishment.
+
+"She returned from Naples yesterday morning, and was taken ill in the
+afternoon--it is said to be apoplexy," he added in a low voice. "If you
+will have patience Signor Principe, I will be at your disposal in five
+minutes."
+
+Orsino was obliged to be satisfied and sat down again by Contini. He
+told him the news of Del Ferice's wife.
+
+"That will make matters worse," said Contini.
+
+"It will not improve them," answered Orsino indifferently. "Considering
+the state of affairs I would like to see Del Ferice before speaking with
+any of the others."
+
+"Those men are all involved with Prince Montevarchi," observed Contini,
+watching the group of which the head clerk was the central figure. "You
+can see by their faces what they think of the business. The short, grey
+haired man is the steward--the big man is the architect. The others are
+contractors. They say it is not less than thirty millions."
+
+Orsino said nothing. He was thinking of Maria Consuelo and wishing that
+he could get away from Rome that night, while admitting that there was
+no possibility of such a thing. Meanwhile the head clerk's gestures to
+his interlocutors expressed more and more helplessness. At last they
+went out in a body.
+
+"And now I am at your service, Signor Principe," said the grave man of
+business coming up to Orsino and Contini. "The usual accommodation, I
+suppose? We will just look over the bills and make out the new ones. It
+will not take ten minutes. The usual cash, I suppose, Signor Principe?
+Yes, to-day is Saturday and you have your men to pay. Quite as usual,
+quite as usual. Will you come into my office?"
+
+Orsino looked at Contini, and Contini looked at Orsino, grasping the
+back of a chair to steady himself.
+
+"Then there is no difficulty about discounting?" stammered Contini,
+turning his face, now suddenly flushed, towards the clerk.
+
+"None whatever," answered the latter with an air of real or affected
+surprise. "I have received the usual instructions to let Andrea Contini
+and Company have all the money they need."
+
+He turned and led the way to his private office. Contini walked
+unsteadily. Orsino showed no astonishment, but his black eyes grew a
+little brighter than usual as he anticipated his next interview with San
+Giacinto. He readily attributed his good fortune to the supposed
+well-known prosperity of the firm, and he rose in his own estimation. He
+quite forgot that Contini, who had now lost his head, had but yesterday
+clearly foreseen the future when he had said that Del Ferice would not
+let the two partners fail until they had fitted the last door and the
+last window in the last of their houses. The conclusion had struck him
+as just at the time. Contini was the first to recall it.
+
+"It will turn out, as I said," he began, when they were driving to their
+office in a cab after leaving the bank. "He will let us live until we
+are worth eating."
+
+"We will arrange matters on a firmer basis before that," answered Orsino
+confidently. "Poor old Donna Tullia! Who would have thought that she
+could die! I will stop and ask for news as we pass."
+
+He stopped the cab before the gilded gate of the detached house.
+Glancing up, he saw that the shutters were closed. The porter came to
+the bars but did not show any intention of opening.
+
+"The Signora Contessa is dead," he said solemnly, in answer to Orsino's
+inquiry.
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Two hours ago."
+
+Orsino's face grew grave as he left his card of condolence and turned
+away. He could hardly have named a person more indifferent to him than
+poor Donna Tullia, but he could not help feeling an odd regret at the
+thought that she was gone at last with all her noisy vanity, her
+restless meddlesomeness and her perpetual chatter. She had not been old
+either, though he called her so, and there had seemed to be still a
+superabundance of life in her. There had been yet many years of
+rattling, useless, social life before her. To-morrow she would have
+taken her last drive through Rome--out through the gate of Saint
+Lawrence to the Campo Varano, there to wait many years perhaps for the
+pale and half sickly Ugo, of whom every one had said for years that he
+could not live through another twelve month with the disease of the
+heart which threatened him. Of late, people had even begun to joke about
+Donna Tullia's third husband. Poor Donna Tullia!
+
+Orsino went to his office with Contini and forced himself through the
+usual round of work. Occasionally he was assailed by a mad desire to
+leave Rome at once, but he opposed it and would not yield. Though his
+affairs had gone well beyond his expectation the present crisis made it
+impossible to abandon his business, unless he could get rid of it
+altogether. And this he seriously contemplated. He knew however, or
+thought he knew, that Contini would be ruined without him. His own name
+was the one which gave the paper its value and decided Del Ferice to
+continue the advances of money. The time was past when Contini would
+gladly have accepted his partner's share of the undertaking, and would
+even have tried to raise funds to purchase it. To retire now would be
+possible only if he could provide for the final liquidation of the
+whole, and this he could only do by applying to his father or mother, in
+other words by acknowledging himself completely beaten in his struggle
+for independence.
+
+The day ended at last and was succeeded by the idleness of Sunday. A
+sort of listless indifference came over Orsino, the reaction, no doubt,
+after all the excitement through which he had passed. It seemed to him
+that Maria Consuelo had never loved him, and that it was better after
+all that she should be gone. He longed for the old days, indeed, but as
+she now appeared to him in his meditations he did not wish her back. He
+had no desire to renew the uncertain struggle for a love which she
+denied in the end; and this mood showed, no doubt, that his own passion
+was less violent than he had himself believed. When a man loves with his
+whole nature, undividedly, he is not apt to submit to separations
+without making a strong effort to reunite himself, by force, persuasion
+or stratagem, with the woman who is trying to escape from him. Orsino
+was conscious of having at first felt the inclination to make such an
+attempt even more strongly than he had shown it, but he was conscious
+also that the interval of two days had been enough to reduce the wish to
+follow Maria Consuelo in such a way that he could hardly understand
+having ever entertained it.
+
+Unsatisfied passion wears itself out very soon. The higher part of love
+may and often does survive in such cases, and the passionate impulses
+may surge up after long quiescence as fierce and dangerous as ever. But
+it is rarely indeed that two unsatisfied lovers who have parted by the
+will of the one or of both can meet again without the consciousness that
+the experimental separation has chilled feelings once familiar and
+destroyed illusions once more than dear. In older times, perhaps, men
+and women loved differently. There was more solitude in those days than
+now, for what is called society was not invented, and people generally
+were more inclined to sadness from living much alone. Melancholy is a
+great strengthener of faithfulness in love. Moreover at that time the
+modern fight for life had not begun, men as a rule had few interests
+besides love and war, and women no interests at all beyond love. We
+moderns should go mad if we were suddenly forced to lead the lives led
+by knights and ladies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The
+monotonous round of such an existence in time of peace would make idiots
+of us, the horrors of that old warfare would make many of us maniacs.
+But it is possible that youths and maidens would love more faithfully
+and wait longer for each other than they will or can to-day. It is
+questionable whether Bayard would have understood a single page of a
+modern love story, Tancred would certainly not have done so; but Caesar
+would have comprehended our lives and our interests without effort, and
+Catullus could have described us as we are, for one great civilization
+is very like another where the same races are concerned.
+
+In the days which followed Maria Consuelo's departure, Orsino came to a
+state of indifference which surprised himself. He remembered that when
+she had gone away in the spring he had scarcely missed her, and that he
+had not thought his own coldness strange, since he was sure that he had
+not loved her then. But that he had loved her now, during her last stay
+in Rome, he was sure, and he would have despised himself if he had not
+been able to believe that he loved her still. Yet, if he was not glad
+that she had quitted him, he was at least strangely satisfied at being
+left alone, and the old fancy for analysis made him try to understand
+himself. The attempt was fruitless, of course, but it occupied his
+thoughts.
+
+He met Spicca in the street, and avoided him. He imagined that the old
+man must despise him for not having resisted and followed Maria Consuelo
+after all. The hypothesis was absurd and the conclusion vain, but he
+could not escape the idea, and it annoyed him. He was probably ashamed
+of not having acted recklessly, as a man should who is dominated by a
+master passion, and yet he was inwardly glad that he had not been
+allowed to yield to the first impulse.
+
+The days succeeded each other and a week passed away, bringing Saturday
+again and the necessity for a visit to the bank. Business had been in a
+very bad state since it had been known that Montevarchi was ruined. So
+far, he had not stopped payment and although the bank refused discount
+he had managed to find money with which to meet his engagements.
+Probably, as San Giacinto had foretold, he would pay everything and
+remain a very poor man indeed. But, although many persons knew this,
+confidence was not restored. Del Ferice declared that he believed
+Montevarchi solvent, as he believed every one with whom his bank dealt
+to be solvent to the uttermost centime, but that he could lend no more
+money to any one on any condition whatsoever, because neither he nor the
+bank had any to lend. Every one, he said, had behaved honestly, and he
+proposed to eclipse the honesty of every one by the frank acknowledgment
+of his own lack of cash. He was distressed, he said, overcome by the
+sufferings of his friends and clients, ready to sell his house, his
+jewelry and his very boots, in the Roman phrase, to accommodate every
+one; but he was conscious that the demand far exceeded any supply which
+he could furnish, no matter at what personal sacrifice, and as it was
+therefore impossible to help everybody, it would be unjust to help a
+few where all were equally deserving.
+
+In the meanwhile he proved the will of his deceased wife, leaving him
+about four and a half millions of francs unconditionally, and half a
+million more to be devoted to some public charity at Ugo's discretion,
+for the repose of Donna Tullia's unquiet spirit. It is needless to say
+that the sorrowing husband determined to spend the legacy magnificently
+in the improvement of the town represented by him in parliament. A part
+of the improvement would consist in a statue of Del Ferice
+himself--representing him, perhaps, as he had escaped from Rome, in the
+garb of a Capuchin friar, but with the addition of an army revolver to
+show that he had fought for Italian unity, though when or where no man
+could tell. But it is worth noting that while he protested his total
+inability to discount any one's bills, Andrea Contini and Company
+regularly renewed their acceptances when due and signed new ones for any
+amount of cash they required. The accommodation was accompanied with a
+request that it should not be mentioned. Orsino took the money
+indifferently enough, conscious that he had three fortunes at his back
+in case of trouble, but Contini grew more nervous as time went on and
+the sums on paper increased in magnitude, while the chances of disposing
+of the buildings seemed reduced to nothing in the stagnation which had
+already set in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+At this time Count Spicca received a letter from Maria Consuelo, written
+from Nice and bearing a postmark more recent than the date which headed
+the page, a fact which proved that the writer had either taken an
+unusually long time in the composition or had withheld the missive
+several days before finally despatching it.
+
+"My father--I write to inform you of certain things which have recently
+taken place and which it is important that you should know, and of which
+I should have the right to require an explanation if I chose to ask it.
+Having been the author of my life, you have made yourself also the
+author of all my unhappiness and of all my trouble. I have never
+understood the cause of your intense hatred for me, but I have felt its
+consequences, even at a great distance from you, and you know well
+enough that I return it with all my heart. Moreover I have made up my
+mind that I will not be made to suffer by you any longer. I tell you so
+quite frankly. This is a declaration of war, and I will act upon it
+immediately.
+
+"You are no doubt aware that Don Orsino Saracinesca has for a long time
+been among my intimate friends. I will not discuss the question, whether
+I did well to admit him to my intimacy or not. That, at least, does not
+concern you. Even admitting your power to exercise the most complete
+tyranny over me in other ways, I am and have always been free to choose
+my own acquaintances, and I am able to defend myself better than most
+women, and as well as any. I will be just, too. I do not mean to
+reproach you with the consequences of what I do. But I will not spare
+you where the results of your action towards me are concerned.
+
+"Don Orsino made love to me last spring. I loved him from the first. I
+can hear your cruel laugh and see your contemptuous face as I write. But
+the information is necessary, and I can bear your scorn because this is
+the last opportunity for such diversion which I shall afford you, and
+because I mean that you shall pay dearly for it. I loved Don Orsino, and
+I love him still. You, of course, have never loved. You have hated,
+however, and perhaps one passion may be the measure of another. It is in
+my case, I can assure you, for the better I love, the better I learn to
+hate you.
+
+"Last Thursday Don Orsino asked me to be his wife. I had known for some
+time that he loved me and I knew that he would speak of it before long.
+The day was sultry at first and then there was a thunderstorm. My nerves
+were unstrung and I lost my head. I told him that I loved him. That does
+not concern you. I told him, also, however, that I had given a solemn
+promise to my dying husband, and I had still the strength to say that I
+would not marry again. I meant to gain time, I longed to be alone, I
+knew that I should yield, but I would not yield blindly. Thank God, I
+was strong. I am like you in that, though happily not in any other way.
+You ask me why I should even think of yielding. I answer that I love Don
+Orsino better than I loved the man you murdered. There is nothing
+humiliating in that, and I make the confession without reserve. I love
+him better, and therefore, being human, I would have broken my promise
+and married him, had marriage been possible. But it is not, as you know.
+It is one thing to turn to the priest as he stands by a dying man and to
+say, Pronounce us man and wife, and give us a blessing, for the sake of
+this man's rest. The priest knew that we were both free, and took the
+responsibility upon himself, knowing also that the act could have no
+consequences in fact, whatever it might prove to be in theory. It is
+quite another matter to be legally married to Don Orsino Saracinesca, in
+the face of a strong opposition. But I went home that evening, believing
+that it could be done and that the opposition would vanish. I believed
+because I loved. I love still, but what I learned that night has killed
+my belief in an impossible happiness.
+
+"I need not tell you all that passed between me and Lucrezia Ferris. How
+she knew of what had happened I cannot tell. She must have followed us
+to the apartment I was furnishing, and she must have overheard what we
+said, or seen enough to convince her. She is a spy. I suppose that is
+the reason why she is imposed upon me, and always has been, since I can
+remember--since I was born, she says. I found her waiting to dress me as
+usual, and as usual I did not speak to her. She spoke first. 'You will
+not marry Don Orsino Saracinesca,' she said, facing me with her bad
+eyes. I could have struck her, but I would not. I asked her what she
+meant. She told me that she knew what I was doing, and asked me whether
+I was aware that I needed documents in order to be married to a beggar
+in Rome, and whether I supposed that the Saracinesca would be inclined
+to overlook the absence of such papers, or could pass a law of their own
+abolishing the necessity for them, or, finally, whether they would
+accept such certificates of my origin as she could produce. She showed
+me a package. She had nothing better to offer me, she said, but such as
+she had, she heartily placed at my disposal. I took the papers. I was
+prepared for a shock, but not for the blow I received.
+
+"You know what I read. The certificate of my birth as the daughter of
+Lucrezia Ferris, unmarried, by Count Spicca who acknowledged the child
+as his--and the certificate of your marriage with Lucrezia Ferris,
+dated--strangely enough a fortnight after my birth--and further a
+document legitimizing me as the lawful daughter of you two. All these
+documents are from Monte Carlo. You will understand why I am in Nice.
+Yes--they are all genuine, every one of them, as I have had no
+difficulty in ascertaining. So I am the daughter of Lucrezia Ferris,
+born out of wedlock and subsequently whitewashed into a sort of
+legitimacy. And Lucrezia Ferris is lawfully the Countess Spicca.
+Lucrezia Ferris, the cowardly spy-woman who more than half controls my
+life, the lying, thieving servant--she robs me at every turn--the
+common, half educated Italian creature,--she is my mother, she is that
+radiant being of whom you sometimes speak with tears in your eyes, she
+is that angel of whom I remind you, she is that sweet influence that
+softened and brightened your lonely life for a brief space some three
+and twenty years ago! She has changed since then.
+
+"And this is the mystery of my birth which you have concealed from me,
+and which it was at any moment in the power of my vile mother to reveal.
+You cannot deny the fact, I suppose, especially since I have taken the
+trouble to search the registers and verify each separate document.
+
+"I gave them all back to her, for I shall never need them. The woman--I
+mean my mother--was quite right. I shall not marry Don Orsino
+Saracinesca. You have lied to me throughout my life. You have always
+told me that my mother was dead, and that I need not be ashamed of my
+birth, though you wished it kept a secret. So far, I have obeyed you. In
+that respect, and only in that, I will continue to act according to your
+wishes. I am not called upon to proclaim to the world and my
+acquaintance that I am the daughter of my own servant, and that you were
+kind enough to marry your estimable mistress after my birth in order to
+confer upon me what you dignify by the name of legitimacy. No. That is
+not necessary. If it could hurt you to proclaim it I would do so in the
+most public way I could find. But it is folly to suppose that you could
+be made to suffer by so simple a process.
+
+"Are you aware, my father, that you have ruined all my life from the
+first? Being so bad, you must be intelligent and you must realise what
+you have done, even if you have done it out of pure love of evil. You
+pretended to be kind to me, until I was old enough to feel all the pain
+you had in store for me. But even then, after you had taken the trouble
+to marry my mother, why did you give me another name? Was that
+necessary? I suppose it was. I did not understand then why my older
+companions looked askance at me in the convent, nor why the nuns
+sometimes whispered together and looked at me. They knew perhaps that no
+such name as mine existed. Since I was your daughter why did I not bear
+your name when I was a little girl? You were ashamed to let it be known
+that you were married, seeing what sort of wife you had taken, and you
+found yourself in a dilemma. If you had acknowledged me as your daughter
+in Austria, your friends in Rome would soon have found out my
+existence--and the existence of your wife. You were very cautious in
+those days, but you seem to have grown careless of late, or you would
+not have left those papers in the care of the Countess Spicca, my
+maid--and my mother. I have heard that very bad men soon reach their
+second childhood and act foolishly. It is quite true.
+
+"Then, later, when you saw that I loved, and was loved, and was to be
+happy, you came between my love and me. You appeared in your own
+character as a liar, a slanderer and a traitor. I loved a man who was
+brave, honourable, faithful--reckless, perhaps, and wild as such men
+are--but devoted and true. You came between us. You told me that he was
+false, cowardly, an adventurer of the worst kind. Because I would not
+believe you, and would have married him in spite of you, you killed him.
+Was it cowardly of him to face the first swordsman in Europe? They told
+me that he was not afraid of you, the men who saw it, and that he fought
+you like a lion, as he was. And the provocation, too! He never struck
+me. He was showing me what he meant by a term in fencing--the silver
+knife he held grazed my cheek because I was startled and moved. But you
+meant to kill him, and you chose to say that he had struck me. Did you
+ever hear a harsh word from his lips during those months of waiting?
+When you had done your work you fled--like the murderer you were and
+are. But I escaped from the woman who says she is my mother--and is--and
+I went to him and found him living and married him. You used to tell me
+that he was an adventurer and little better than a beggar. Yet he left
+me a large fortune. It is as well that he provided for me, since you
+have succeeded in losing most of your own money at play--doubtless to
+insure my not profiting by it at your death. Not that you will die--men
+of your kind outlive their victims, because they kill them.
+
+"And now, when you saw--for you did see it--when you saw and knew that
+Orsino Saracinesca and I loved each other, you have broken my life a
+second time. You might so easily have gone to him, or have come to me,
+at the first, with the truth. You know that I should never forgive you
+for what you had done already. A little more could have made matters no
+worse then. You knew that Don Orsino would have thanked you as a friend
+for the warning. Instead--I refuse to believe you in your dotage after
+all--you make that woman spy upon me until the great moment is come, you
+give her the weapons and you bid her strike when the blow will be most
+excruciating. You are not a man. You are Satan. I parted twice from the
+man I love. He would not let me go, and he came back and tried to keep
+me--I do not know how I escaped. God helped me. He is so brave and noble
+that if he had held those accursed papers in his hands and known all the
+truth he would not have given me up. He would have brought a stain on
+his great name, and shame upon his great house for my sake. He is not
+like you. I parted from him twice, I know all that I can suffer, and I
+hate you for each individual suffering, great and small.
+
+"I have dismissed my mother from my service. How that would sound in
+Rome! I have given her as much money as she can expect and I have got
+rid of her. She said that she would not go, that she would write to you,
+and many other things. I told her that if she attempted to stay I would
+go to the authorities, prove that she was my mother, provide for her, if
+the law required it and have her forcibly turned out of my house by the
+aid of the same law. I am of age, married, independent, and I cannot be
+obliged to entertain my mother either in the character of a servant, or
+as a visitor. I suppose she has a right to a lodging under your roof. I
+hope she will take advantage of it, as I advised her. She took the money
+and went away, cursing me. I think that if she had ever, in all my life,
+shown the smallest affection for me--even at the last, when she declared
+herself my mother, if she had shown a spark of motherly feeling, of
+tenderness, of anything human, I could have accepted her and tolerated
+her, half peasant woman as she is, spy as she has been, and cheat and
+thief. But she stood before me with the most perfect indifference,
+watching my surprise with those bad eyes of hers. I wonder why I have
+borne her presence so long. I suppose it had never struck me that I
+could get rid of her, in spite of you, if I chose. By the bye, I sent
+for a notary when I paid her, and I got a legal receipt signed with her
+legal name, Lucrezia Spicca, _ta Ferris_. The document formally
+releases me from all further claims. I hope you will understand that you
+have no power whatsoever to impose her upon me again, though I confess
+that I am expecting your next move with interest. I suppose that you
+have not done with me yet, and have some new means of torment in
+reserve. Satan is rarely idle long.
+
+"And now I have done. If you were not the villain you are, I should
+expect you to go to the man whose happiness I have endangered, if not
+destroyed. I should expect you to tell Don Orsino Saracinesca enough of
+the truth to make him understand my action. But I know you far too well
+to imagine that you would willingly take from my life one thorn of the
+many you have planted in it. I will write to Don Orsino myself. I think
+you need not fear him--I am sorry that you need not. But I shall not
+tell him more than is necessary. You will remember, I hope, that such
+discretion as I may show, is not shown out of consideration for you, but
+out of forethought for my own welfare. I have unfortunately no means of
+preventing you from writing to me, but you may be sure that your letters
+will never be read, so that you will do as well to spare yourself the
+trouble of composing them.
+
+"MARIA CONSUELO D'ARANJUEZ."
+
+Spicca received this letter early in the morning, and at mid-day he
+still sat in his chair, holding it in his hand. His face was very white,
+his head hung forward upon his breast, his thin fingers were stiffened
+upon the thin paper. Only the hardly perceptible rise and fall of the
+chest showed that he still breathed.
+
+The clocks had already struck twelve when his old servant entered the
+room, a being thin, wizened, grey and noiseless as the ghost of a
+greyhound. He stood still a moment before his master, expecting that he
+would look up, then bent anxiously over him and felt his hands.
+
+Spicca slowly raised his sunken eyes.
+
+"It will pass, Santi--it will pass," he said feebly.
+
+Then he began to fold up the sheets slowly and with difficulty, but very
+neatly, as men of extraordinary skill with their hands do everything.
+Santi looked at him doubtfully and then got a glass and a bottle of
+cordial from a small carved press in the corner. Spicca drank the
+liqueur slowly and set the glass steadily upon the table.
+
+"Bad news, Signor Conte?" asked the servant anxiously, and in a way
+which betrayed at once the kindly relations existing between the two.
+
+"Very bad news," Spicca answered sadly and shaking his head.
+
+Santi sighed, restored the cordial to the press and took up the glass,
+as though he were about to leave the room. But he still lingered near
+the table, glancing uneasily at his master as though he had something to
+say, but was hesitating to begin.
+
+"What is it, Santi?" asked the count.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Signor Conte--you have had bad news--if you will
+allow me to speak, there are several small economies which could still
+be managed without too much inconveniencing you. Pardon the liberty,
+Signor Conte."
+
+"I know, I know. But it is not money this time. I wish it were."
+
+Santi's expression immediately lost much of its anxiety. He had shared
+his master's fallen fortunes and knew better than he what he meant by a
+few more small economies, as he called them.
+
+"God be praised, Signor Conte," he said solemnly. "May I serve the
+breakfast?"
+
+"I have no appetite, Santi. Go and eat yourself."
+
+"A little something?" Santi spoke in a coaxing way. "I have prepared a
+little mixed fry, with toast, as you like it, Signor Conte, and the
+salad is good to-day--ham and figs are also in the house. Let me lay the
+cloth--when you see, you will eat--and just one egg beaten up with a
+glass of red wine to begin--that will dispose the stomach."
+
+Spicca shook his head again, but Santi paid no attention to the refusal
+and went about preparing the meal. When it was ready the old man
+suffered himself to be persuaded and ate a little. He was in reality
+stronger than he looked, and an extraordinary nervous energy still
+lurked beneath the appearance of a feebleness almost amounting to
+decrepitude. The little nourishment he took sufficed to restore the
+balance, and when he rose from the table, he was outwardly almost
+himself again. When a man has suffered great moral pain for years, he
+bears a new shock, even the worst, better than one who is hard hit in
+the midst of a placid and long habitual happiness. The soul can be
+taught to bear trouble as the great self mortifiers of an earlier time
+taught their bodies to bear scourging. The process is painful but
+hardening.
+
+"I feel better, Santi," said Spicca. "Your breakfast has done me good.
+You are an excellent doctor."
+
+He turned away and took out his pocket-book--not over well garnished. He
+found a ten franc note. Then he looked round and spoke in a gentle,
+kindly tone.
+
+"Santi--this trouble has nothing to do with money. You need a new pair
+of shoes, I am sure. Do you think that ten francs is enough?"
+
+Santi bowed respectfully and took the money.
+
+"A thousand thanks, Signor Conte," he said.
+
+Santi was a strange man, from the heart of the Abruzzi. He pocketed the
+note, but that night, when he had undressed his master and was arranging
+the things on the dressing table, the ten francs found their way back
+into the black pocket-book. Spicca never counted, and never knew.
+
+He did not write to Maria Consuelo, for he was well aware that in her
+present state of mind she would undoubtedly burn his letter unopened, as
+she had said she would. Late in the day he went out, walked for an hour,
+entered the club and read the papers, and at last betook himself to the
+restaurant where Orsino dined when his people were out of town.
+
+In due time, Orsino appeared, looking pale and ill tempered. He caught
+sight of Spicca and went at once to the table where he sat.
+
+"I have had a letter," said the young man. "I must speak to you. If you
+do not object, we will dine together."
+
+"By all means. There is nothing like a thoroughly bad dinner to promote
+ill-feeling."
+
+Orsino glanced at the old man in momentary surprise. But he knew his
+ways tolerably well, and was familiar with the chronic acidity of his
+speech.
+
+"You probably guess who has written to me," Orsino resumed. "It was
+natural, perhaps, that she should have something to say, but what she
+actually says, is more than I was prepared to hear."
+
+Spicca's eyes grew less dull and he turned an inquiring glance on his
+companion.
+
+"When I tell you that in this letter, Madame d'Aranjuez has confided to
+me the true story of her origin, I have probably said enough," continued
+the young man.
+
+"You have said too much or too little," Spicca answered in an almost
+indifferent tone.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Unless you tell me just what she has told you, or show me the letter, I
+cannot possibly judge of the truth of the tale."
+
+Orsino raised his head angrily.
+
+"Do you mean me to doubt that Madame d'Aranjuez speaks the truth?" he
+asked.
+
+"Calm yourself. Whatever Madame d'Aranjuez has written to you, she
+believes to be true. But she may have been herself deceived."
+
+"In spite of documents--public registers--"
+
+"Ah! Then she has told you about those certificates?"
+
+"That--and a great deal more which concerns you."
+
+"Precisely. A great deal more. I know all about the registers, as you
+may easily suppose, seeing that they concern two somewhat important acts
+in my own life and that I was very careful to have those acts properly
+recorded, beyond the possibility of denial--beyond the possibility of
+denial," he repeated very slowly and emphatically. "Do you understand
+that?"
+
+"It would not enter the mind of a sane person to doubt such evidence,"
+answered Orsino rather scornfully.
+
+"No, I suppose not. As you do not therefore come to me for confirmation
+of what is already undeniable, I cannot understand why you come to me at
+all in this matter, unless you do so on account of other things which
+Madame d'Aranjuez has written you, and of which you have so far kept me
+in ignorance."
+
+Spicca spoke with a formal manner and in cold tones, drawing up his bent
+figure a little. A waiter came to the table and both men ordered their
+dinner. The interruption rather favoured the development of a hostile
+feeling between them, than otherwise.
+
+"I will explain my reasons for coming to find you here," said Orsino
+when they were again alone.
+
+"So far as I am concerned, no explanation is necessary. I am content not
+to understand. Moreover, this is a public place, in which we have
+accidentally met and dined together before."
+
+"I did not come here by accident," answered Orsino. "And I did not come
+in order to give explanations but to ask for one."
+
+"Ah?" Spicca eyed him coolly.
+
+"Yes. I wish to know why you have hated your daughter all her life, why
+you persecute her in every way, why you--"
+
+"Will you kindly stop?"
+
+The old man's voice grew suddenly clear and incisive, and Orsino broke
+off in the middle of his sentence. A moment's pause followed.
+
+"I requested you to stop speaking," Spicca resumed, "because you were
+unconsciously making statements which have no foundation whatever in
+fact. Observe that I say, unconsciously. You are completely mistaken. I
+do not hate Madame d'Aranjuez. I love her with all my heart and soul. I
+do not persecute her in every way, nor in any way. On the contrary, her
+happiness is the only object of such life as I still have to live, and I
+have little but that life left to give her. I am in earnest, Orsino."
+
+"I see you are. That makes what you say all the more surprising."
+
+"No doubt it does. Madame d'Aranjuez has just written to you, and you
+have her letter in your pocket. She has told you in that letter a number
+of facts in her own life, as she sees them, and you look at them as she
+does. It is natural. To her and to you, I appear to be a monster of
+evil, a hideous incarnation of cruelty, a devil in short. Did she call
+me a devil in her letter?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Precisely. She has also written to me, informing me that I am Satan.
+There is a directness in the statement and a general disregard of
+probability which is not without charm. Nevertheless, I am Spicca, and
+not Beelzebub, her assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. You see
+how views may differ. You know much of her life, but you know nothing of
+mine, nor is it my intention to tell you anything about myself. But I
+will tell you this much. If I could do anything to mend matters, I
+would. If I could make it possible for you to marry Madame
+d'Aranjuez--being what you are, and fenced in as you are, I would. If I
+could tell you all the rest of the truth, which she does not know, nor
+dream of, I would. I am bound by a very solemn promise of secrecy--by
+something more than a promise in fact. Yet, if I could do good to her by
+breaking oaths, betraying confidence and trampling on the deepest
+obligations which can bind a man, I would. But that good cannot be done
+any more. That is all I can tell you."
+
+"It is little enough. You could, and you can, tell the whole truth, as
+you call it, to Madame d'Aranjuez. I would advise you to do so, instead
+of embittering her life at every turn."
+
+"I have not asked for your advice, Orsino. That she is unhappy, I know.
+That she hates me, is clear. She would not be the happier for hating me
+less, since nothing else would be changed. She need not think of me, if
+the subject is disagreeable. In all other respects she is perfectly
+free. She is young, rich, and at liberty to go where she pleases and to
+do what she likes. So long as I am alive, I shall watch over her--"
+
+"And destroy every chance of happiness which presents itself,"
+interrupted Orsino.
+
+"I gave you some idea, the other night, of the happiness she might have
+enjoyed with the deceased Aranjuez. If I made a mistake in regard to
+what I saw him do--I admit the possibility of an error--I was
+nevertheless quite right in ridding her of the man. I have atoned for
+the mistake, if we call it so, in a way of which you do not dream, nor
+she either. The good remains, for Aranjuez is buried."
+
+"You speak of secret atonement--I was not aware that you ever suffered
+from remorse."
+
+"Nor I," answered Spicca drily.
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"You are questioning me, and I have warned you that I will tell you
+nothing about myself. You will confer a great favour upon me by not
+insisting."
+
+"Are you threatening me again?"
+
+"I am not doing anything of the kind. I never threaten any one. I could
+kill you as easily as I killed Aranjuez, old and decrepit as I look, and
+I should be perfectly indifferent to the opprobrium of killing so young
+a man--though I think that, looking at us two, many people might suppose
+the advantage to be on your side rather than on mine. But young men
+nowadays do not learn to handle arms. Short of laying violent hands upon
+me, you will find it quite impossible to provoke me. I am almost old
+enough to be your grandfather, and I understand you very well. You love
+Madame d'Aranjuez. She knows that to marry you would be to bring about
+such a quarrel with your family as might ruin half your life, and she
+has the rare courage to tell you so and to refuse your offer. You think
+that I can do something to help you and you are incensed because I am
+powerless, and furious because I object to your leaving Rome in the same
+train with her, against her will. You are more furious still to-day
+because you have adopted her belief that I am a monster of iniquity.
+Observe--that, apart from hindering you from a great piece of folly the
+other day, I have never interfered. I do not interfere now. As I said
+then, follow her if you please, persuade her to marry you if you can,
+quarrel with all your family if you like. It is nothing to me. Publish
+the banns of your marriage on the doors of the Capitol and declare to
+the whole world that Madame d'Aranjuez, the future Princess Saracinesca,
+is the daughter of Count Spicca and Lucrezia Ferris, his lawful wife.
+There will be a little talk, but it will not hurt me. People have kept
+their marriages a secret for a whole lifetime before now. I do not care
+what you do, nor what the whole tribe of the Saracinesca may do,
+provided that none of you do harm to Maria Consuelo, nor bring useless
+suffering upon her. If any of you do that, I will kill you. That at
+least is a threat, if you like. Good-night."
+
+Thereupon Spicca rose suddenly from his seat, leaving his dinner
+unfinished, and went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+Orsino did not leave Rome after all. He was not in reality prevented
+from doing so by the necessity of attending to his business, for he
+might assuredly have absented himself for a week or two at almost any
+time before the new year, without incurring any especial danger. From
+time to time, at ever increasing intervals, he felt strongly impelled to
+rejoin Maria Consuelo in Paris where she had ultimately determined to
+spend the autumn and winter, but the impulse always lacked just the
+measure of strength which would have made it a resolution. When he
+thought of his many hesitations he did not understand himself and he
+fell in his own estimation, so that he became by degrees more silent and
+melancholy of disposition than had originally been natural with him.
+
+He had much time for reflection and he constantly brooded over the
+situation in which he found himself. The question seemed to be, whether
+he loved Maria Consuelo or not, since he was able to display such
+apparent indifference to her absence. In reality he also doubted whether
+he was loved by her, and the one uncertainty was fully as great as the
+other.
+
+He went over all that had passed. The position had never been an easy
+one, and the letter which Maria Consuelo had written to him after her
+departure had not made it easier. It had contained the revelations
+concerning her birth, together with many references to Spicca's
+continued cruelty, plentifully supported by statements of facts. She had
+then distinctly told Orsino that she would never marry him, under any
+circumstances whatever, declaring that if he followed her she would not
+even see him. She would not ruin his life and plunge him into a life
+long quarrel with his family, she said, and she added that she would
+certainly not expose herself to such treatment as she would undoubtedly
+receive at the hands of the Saracinesca if she married Orsino without
+his parents' consent.
+
+A man does not easily believe that he is deprived of what he most
+desires exclusively for his own good and welfare, and the last sentence
+quoted wounded Orsino deeply. He believed himself ready to incur the
+displeasure of all his people for Maria Consuelo's sake, and he said in
+his heart that if she loved him she should be ready to bear as much as
+he. The language in which she expressed herself, too, was cold and
+almost incisive.
+
+Unlike Spicca Orsino answered this letter, writing in an argumentative
+strain, bringing the best reasons he could find to bear against those
+she alleged, and at last reproaching her with not being willing to
+suffer for his sake a tenth part of what he would endure for her. But he
+announced his intention of joining her before long, and expressed the
+certainty that she would receive him.
+
+To this Maria Consuelo made no reply for some time. When she wrote at
+last, it was to say that she had carefully considered her decision and
+saw no good cause for changing it. To Orsino her tone seemed colder and
+more distant than ever. The fact that the pages were blotted here and
+there and that the handwriting was unsteady, was probably to be referred
+to her carelessness. He brooded over his misfortune, thought more than
+once of making a desperate effort to win back her love, and remained in
+Rome. After a long interval he wrote to her again. This time he produced
+an epistle which, under the circumstances, might have seemed almost
+ridiculous. It was full of indifferent gossip about society, it
+contained a few sarcastic remarks about his own approaching failure,
+with some rather youthfully cynical observations on the instability of
+things in general and the hollowness of all aspirations whatsoever.
+
+He received no answer, and duly repented the flippant tone he had taken.
+He would have been greatly surprised could he have learned that this
+last letter was destined to produce a greater effect upon his life than
+all he had written before it.
+
+In the meanwhile his father, who had heard of the increasing troubles in
+the world of business, wrote him in a constant strain of warning, to
+which he paid little attention. His mother's letters, too, betrayed her
+anxiety, but expressed what his father's did not, to wit the most
+boundless confidence in his power to extricate himself honourably from
+all difficulties, together with the assurance that if worst came to
+worst she was always ready to help him.
+
+Suddenly and without warning old Saracinesca returned from his
+wanderings. He had taken the trouble to keep the family informed of his
+movements by his secretary during two or three months and had then
+temporarily allowed them to lose sight of him, thereby causing them
+considerable anxiety, though an occasional paragraph in a newspaper
+reassured them from time to time. Then, on a certain afternoon in
+November, he appeared, alone and in a cab, as though he had been out for
+a stroll.
+
+"Well, my boy, are you ruined yet?" he inquired, entering Orsino's room
+without ceremony.
+
+The young man started from his seat and took the old gentleman's rough
+hand, with an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Yes--you may well look at me," laughed the Prince. "I have grown ten
+years younger. And you?" He pushed his grandson into the light and
+scrutinised his face fiercely. "And you are ten years older," he
+concluded, in a discontented tone.
+
+"I did not know it," answered Orsino with an attempt at a laugh.
+
+"You have been at some mischief. I know it. I can see it."
+
+He dropped the young fellow's arm, shook his head and began to move
+about the room. Then he came back all at once and looked up into
+Orsino's face from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
+
+"Out with it, I mean to know!" he said, roughly but not unkindly. "Have
+you lost money? Are you ill? Are you in love?"
+
+Orsino would certainly have resented the first and the last questions,
+if not all three, had they been put to him by his father. There was
+something in the old Prince's nature, something warmer and more human,
+which appealed to his own. Sant' Ilario was, and always had been,
+outwardly cold, somewhat measured in his speech, undemonstrative, a man
+not easily moved to much expression or to real sympathy except by love,
+but capable, under that influence, of going to great lengths. And
+Orsino, though in some respects resembling his mother rather than his
+father, was not unlike the latter, with a larger measure of ambition
+and less real pride. It was probably the latter characteristic which
+made him feel the need of sympathy in a way his father had never felt it
+and could never understand it, and he was thereby drawn more closely to
+his mother and to his grandfather than to Sant' Ilario.
+
+Old Saracinesca evidently meant to be answered, as he stood there gazing
+into Orsino's eyes.
+
+"A great deal has happened since you went away," said Orsino, half
+wishing that he could tell everything. "In the first place, business is
+in a very bad state, and I am anxious."
+
+"Dirty work, business," grumbled Saracinesca. "I always told you so.
+Then you have lost money, you young idiot! I thought so. Did you think
+you were any better than Montevarchi? I hope you have kept your name out
+of the market, at all events. What in the name of heaven made you put
+your hand to such filth! Come--how much do you want? We will whitewash
+you and you shall start to-morrow and go round the world."
+
+"But I am not in actual need of money at all--"
+
+"Then what the devil are you in need of?"
+
+"An improvement in business, and the assurance that I shall not
+ultimately be bankrupt."
+
+"If money is not an assurance that you will not be bankrupt, I would
+like to learn what is. All this is nonsense. Tell me the truth, my
+boy--you are in love. That is the trouble."
+
+Orsino shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I have been in love some time," he answered.
+
+"Young? Old? Marriageable? Married? Out with it, I say!"
+
+"I would rather talk about business. I think it is all over now."
+
+"Just like your father--always full of secrets! As if I did not know all
+about it. You are in love with that Madame d'Aranjuez."
+
+Orsino turned a little pale.
+
+"Please do not call her 'that' Madame d'Aranjuez," he said, gravely.
+
+"Eh? What? Are you so sensitive about her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are? Very well--I like that. What about her?"
+
+"What a question!"
+
+"I mean--is she indifferent, cold, in love with some one else?"
+
+"Not that I am aware. She has refused to marry me and has left Rome,
+that is all."
+
+"Refused to marry you!" cried old Saracinesca in boundless astonishment.
+"My dear boy, you must be out of your mind! The thing is impossible. You
+are the best match in Rome. Madame d'Aranjuez refuse you--absolutely
+incredible, not to be believed for a moment. You are dreaming. A
+widow--without much fortune--the relict of some curious adventurer--a
+woman looking for a fortune, a woman--"
+
+"Stop!" cried Orsino, savagely.
+
+"Oh yes--I forgot. You are sensitive. Well, well, I meant nothing
+against her, except that she must be insane if what you tell me is true.
+But I am glad of it, my boy, very glad. She is no match for you, Orsino.
+I confess, I wish you would marry at once. I would like to see my great
+grandchildren--but not Madame d'Aranjuez. A widow, too."
+
+"My father married a widow."
+
+"When you find a widow like your mother, and ten years younger than
+yourself, marry her if you can. But not Madame d'Aranjuez--older than
+you by several years."
+
+"A few years."
+
+"Is that all? It is too much, though. And who is Madame d'Aranjuez?
+Everybody was asking the question last winter. I suppose she had a name
+before she married, and since you have been trying to make her your
+wife, you must know all about her. Who was she?"
+
+Orsino hesitated.
+
+"You see!" cried, the old Prince. "It is not all right. There is a
+secret--there is something wrong about her family, or about her entrance
+into the world. She knows perfectly well that we would never receive her
+and has concealed it all from you--"
+
+"She has not concealed it. She has told me the exact truth. But I shall
+not repeat it to you."
+
+"All the stronger proof that everything is not right. You are well out
+of it, my boy, exceedingly well out of it. I congratulate you."
+
+"I would rather not be congratulated."
+
+"As you please. I am sorry for you, if you are unhappy. Try and forget
+all about it. How is your mother?"
+
+At any other time Orsino would have laughed at the characteristic
+abruptness.
+
+"Perfectly well, I believe. I have not seen her all summer," he answered
+gravely.
+
+"Not been to Saracinesca all summer! No wonder you look ill. Telegraph
+to them that I have come back and let us get the family together as soon
+as possible. Do you think I mean to spend six months alone in your
+company, especially when you are away all day at that wretched office of
+yours? Be quick about it--telegraph at once."
+
+"Very well. But please do not repeat anything of what I have told you to
+my father or my mother. That is the only thing I have to ask."
+
+"Am I a parrot? I never talk to them of your affairs."
+
+"Thanks. I am grateful."
+
+"To heaven because your grandfather is not a parakeet! No doubt. You
+have good cause. And look here, Orsino--"
+
+The old man took Orsino's arm and held it firmly, speaking in a lower
+tone.
+
+"Do not make an ass of yourself, my boy--especially in business. But if
+you do--and you probably will, you know--just come to me, without
+speaking to any one else. I will see what can be done without noise.
+There--take that, and forget all about your troubles and get a little
+more colour into your face."
+
+"You are too good to me," said Orsino, grasping the old Prince's hand.
+For once, he was really moved.
+
+"Nonsense--go and send that telegram at once. I do not want to be kept
+waiting a week for a sight of my family."
+
+With a deep, good humoured laugh he pushed Orsino out of the door in
+front of him and went off to his own quarters.
+
+In due time the family returned from Saracinesca and the gloomy old
+palace waked to life again. Corona and her husband were both struck by
+the change in Orsino's appearance, which indeed contrasted strongly with
+their own, refreshed and strengthened as they were by the keen mountain
+air, the endless out-of-door life, the manifold occupations of people
+deeply interested in the welfare of those around them and supremely
+conscious of their own power to produce good results in their own way.
+When they all came back, Orsino himself felt how jaded and worn he was
+as compared with them.
+
+Before twelve hours had gone by, he found himself alone with his mother.
+Strange to say he had not looked forward to the interview with pleasure.
+The bond of sympathy which had so closely united the two during the
+spring seemed weakened, and Orsino would, if possible, have put off the
+renewal of intimate converse which he knew to be inevitable. But that
+could not be done.
+
+It would not be hard to find reasons for his wishing to avoid his
+mother. Formerly his daily tale had been one of success, of hope, of
+ever increasing confidence. Now he had nothing to tell of but danger and
+anxiety for the future, and he was not without a suspicion that she
+would strongly disapprove of his allowing himself to be kept afloat by
+Del Ferice's personal influence, and perhaps by his personal aid. It was
+hard to begin daily intercourse on a basis of things so different from
+that which had seemed solid and safe when they had last talked together.
+He had learned to bear his own troubles bravely, too, and there was
+something which he associated with weakness in the idea of asking
+sympathy for them now. He would rather have been left alone.
+
+Deep down, too, was the consciousness of all that had happened between
+himself and Maria Consuelo since his mother's departure. Another
+suffering, another and distinctly different misfortune, to be borne
+better in silence than under question even of the most affectionate
+kind. His grandfather had indeed guessed at both truths and had taxed
+him with them at once, but that was quite another matter. He knew that
+the old gentleman would never refer again to what he had learned, and he
+appreciated the generous offer of help, of which he would never avail
+himself, in a way in which he could not appreciate an assistance even
+more lovingly proffered, perhaps, but which must be asked for by a
+confession of his own failure.
+
+On the other hand, he was incapable of distorting the facts in any way
+so as to make his mother believe him more successful than he actually
+was. There was nothing dishonest, perhaps, in pretending to be hopeful
+when he really had little hope, but he could not have represented the
+condition of the business otherwise than as it really stood.
+
+The interview was a long one, and Corona's dark face grew grave if not
+despondent as he explained to her one point after another, taking
+especial care to elucidate all that bore upon his relations with Del
+Ferice. It was most important that his mother should understand how he
+was placed, and how Del Ferice's continued advances of money were not to
+be regarded in the light of a personal favour, but as a speculation in
+which Ugo would probably get the best of the bargain. Orsino knew how
+sensitive his mother would be on such a point, and dreaded the moment
+when she should begin to think that he was laying himself under
+obligations beyond the strict limits of business.
+
+Corona leaned back in her low seat and covered her eyes with one hand
+for a moment, in deep thought. Orsino waited anxiously for her to speak.
+
+"My dear," she said at last, "you make it very clear, and I understand
+you perfectly. Nevertheless, it seems to me that your position is not
+very dignified, considering who you are, and what Del Ferice is. Do you
+not think so yourself?"
+
+Orsino flushed a little. She had not put the point as he had expected,
+and her words told upon him.
+
+"When I entered business, I put my dignity in my pocket," he answered,
+with a forced laugh. "There cannot be much of it in business, at the
+best."
+
+His mother's black eyes seemed to grow blacker, and the delicate nostril
+quivered a little.
+
+"If that is true, I wish you had never meddled in these affairs," she
+said, proudly. "But you talked differently last spring, and you made me
+see it all in another way. You made me feel, on the contrary that in
+doing something for yourself, in showing that you were able to
+accomplish something, in asserting your independence, you were making
+yourself more worthy of respect--and I have respected you accordingly."
+
+"Exactly," answered Orsino, catching at the old argument. "That is just
+what I wished to do. What I said a moment since was in the way of a
+generality. Business means a struggle for money, I suppose, and that, in
+itself, is not dignified. But it is not dishonourable. After all, the
+means may justify the end."
+
+"I hate that saying!" exclaimed Corona hotly. "I wish you were free of
+the whole affair."
+
+"So do I, with all my heart!"
+
+A short silence followed.
+
+"If I had known all this three months ago," Corona resumed, "I would
+have taken the money and given it to you, to clear yourself. I thought
+you were succeeding and I have used all the funds I could gather to buy
+the Montevarchi's property between us and Affile and in planting
+eucalyptus trees in that low land of mine where the people have suffered
+so much from fever. I have nothing at my disposal unless I borrow. Why
+did you not tell me the truth in the summer, Orsino? Why have you let me
+imagine that you were prospering all along, when you have been and are
+at the point of failure? It is too bad--"
+
+She broke off suddenly and clasped her hands together on her knee.
+
+"It is only lately that business has gone so badly," said Orsino.
+
+"It was all wrong from the beginning! I should never have encouraged
+you. Your father was right, as he always is--and now you must tell him
+so."
+
+But Orsino refused to go to his father, except in the last extremity. He
+represented that it was better, and more dignified, since Corona
+insisted upon the point of dignity, to fight the battle alone so long as
+there was a chance of winning. His mother, on the other hand, maintained
+that he should free himself at once and at any cost. A few months
+earlier he could easily have persuaded her that he was right; but she
+seemed changed since he had parted from her, and he fancied that his
+father's influence had been at work with her. This he resented bitterly.
+It must be remembered, too, that he had begun the interview with a
+preconceived prejudice, expecting it to turn out badly, so that he was
+the more ready to allow matters to take an unfavourable turn.
+
+The result was not a decided break in his relations with his mother, but
+a state of things more irritating than any open difference could have
+been. From that time Corona discouraged him, and never ceased to advise
+him to go to his father and ask frankly for enough money to clear him
+outright. Orsino, on his part, obstinately refused to apply to any one
+for help, as long as Del Ferice continued to advance him money.
+
+In those months which followed there were few indeed who did not suffer
+in the almost universal financial cataclysm. All that Contini and
+others, older and wiser than he, had predicted, took place, and more
+also. The banks refused discount, even upon the best paper, saying with
+justice that they were obliged to hold their funds in reserve at such a
+time. The works stopped almost everywhere. It was impossible to raise
+money. Thousands upon thousands of workmen who had come from great
+distances during the past two or three years were suddenly thrown out of
+work, penniless in the streets and many of them burdened with wives and
+children. There were one or two small riots and there was much
+demonstration, but, on the whole, the poor masons behaved very well. The
+government and the municipality did what they could--what governments
+and municipalities can do when hampered at every turn by the most
+complicated and ill-considered machinery of administration ever invented
+in any country. The starving workmen were by slow degrees got out of the
+city and sent back to starve out of sight in their native places. The
+emigration was enormous in all directions.
+
+The dismal ruins of that new city which was to have been built and which
+never reached completion are visible everywhere. Houses seven stories
+high, abandoned within a month of completion rise uninhabited and
+uninhabitable out of a rank growth of weeds, amidst heaps of rubbish,
+staring down at the broad, desolate streets where the vigorous grass
+pushes its way up through the loose stones of the unrolled metalling.
+Amidst heavy low walls which were to have been the ground stories of
+palaces, a few ragged children play in the sun, a lean donkey crops the
+thistles, or if near to a few occupied dwellings, a wine seller makes a
+booth of straw and chestnut boughs and dispenses a poisonous, sour drink
+to those who will buy. But that is only in the warm months. The winter
+winds blow the wretched booth to pieces and increase the desolation.
+Further on, tall facades rise suddenly up, the blue sky gleaming
+through their windows, the green moss already growing upon their naked
+stones and bricks. The Barbarini of the future, if any should arise,
+will not need to despoil the Colosseum to quarry material for their
+palaces. If, as the old pasquinade had it the Barbarini did what the
+Barbarians did not, how much worse than barbarians have these modern
+civilizers done!
+
+The distress was very great in the early months of 1889. The
+satisfaction which many of the new men would have felt at the ruin of
+great old families was effectually neutralized by their own financial
+destruction. Princes, bankers, contractors and master masons went down
+together in the general bankruptcy. Ugo Del Ferice survived and with him
+Andrea Contini and Company, and doubtless other small firms which he
+protected for his own ends. San Giacinto, calm, far-seeing, and keen as
+an eagle, surveyed the chaos from the height of his magnificent fortune,
+unmoved and immovable, awaiting the lowest ebb of the tide. The
+Saracinesca looked on, hampered a little by the sudden fall in rents and
+other sources of their income, but still superior to events, though
+secretly anxious about Orsino's affairs, and daily expecting that he
+must fail.
+
+And Orsino himself had changed, as was natural enough. He was learning
+to seem what he was not, and those who have learned that lesson know how
+it influences the real man whom no one can judge but himself. So long as
+there had been one person in his life with whom he could live in perfect
+sympathy he had given himself little trouble about his outward
+behaviour. So long as he had felt that, come what might, his mother was
+on his side, he had not thought it worth his while not to be natural
+with every one, according to his humour. He was wrong, no doubt, in
+fancying that Corona had deserted him. But he had already suffered a
+loss, in Maria Consuelo, which had at the time seemed the greatest
+conceivable, and the pain he had suffered then, together with, the deep
+though, unacknowledged wound to his vanity, had predisposed him to
+believe that he was destined to be friendless. The consequence was that
+a very slight break in the perfect understanding which had so long
+existed between him and his mother had produced serious results. He now
+felt that he was completely alone, and like most lonely men of sound
+character he acquired the habit of keeping his troubles entirely to
+himself, while affecting an almost unnaturally quiet and equable manner
+with those around him. On the whole, he found that his life was easier
+when he lived it on this principle. He found that he was more careful in
+his actions since he had a part to sustain, and that his opinion carried
+more weight since he expressed it more cautiously and seemed less liable
+to fluctuations of mood and temper. The change in his character was more
+apparent than real, perhaps, as changes of character generally are when
+not in the way of logical development; but the constant thought of
+appearances reacts upon the inner nature in the end, and much which at
+first is only put on, becomes a habit next, and ends by taking the place
+of an impulse.
+
+Orsino was aware that his chief preoccupation was identical with that
+which absorbed his mother's thoughts. He wished to free himself from the
+business in which he was so deeply involved, and which still prospered
+so strangely in spite of the general ruin. But here the community of
+ideas ended. He wished to free himself in his own way, without
+humiliating himself by going to his father for help. Meanwhile, too,
+Sant' Ilario himself had his doubts concerning his own judgment. It was
+inconceivable to him that Del Ferice could be losing money to oblige
+Orsino, and if he had desired to ruin him he could have done so with
+ease a hundred times in the past months. It might be, he said to
+himself, that Orsino had after all, a surprising genius for affairs and
+had weathered the storm in the face of tremendous difficulties. Orsino
+saw the belief growing in his father's mind, and the certainty that it
+was there did not dispose him to throw up the fight and acknowledge
+himself beaten.
+
+The Saracinesca were one of the very few Roman families in which there
+is a tradition in favour of non-interference with the action of children
+already of age. The consequence was that although the old Prince,
+Giovanni and his wife, all three felt considerable anxiety, they did
+nothing to hamper Orsino's action, beyond an occasionally repeated
+warning to be careful. That his occupation was distasteful to them, they
+did not conceal, but he met their expressions of opinion with perfect
+equanimity and outward good humour, even when his mother, once his
+staunch ally, openly advised him to give up business and travel for a
+year. Their prejudice was certainly not unnatural, and had been
+strengthened by the perusal of the unsavoury details published by the
+papers at each new bankruptcy during the year. But they found Orsino now
+always the same, always quiet, good-humoured and firm in his projects.
+
+Andrea Contini had not been very exact in his calculation of the date at
+which the last door and the last window would be placed in the last of
+the houses which he and Orsino had undertaken to build. The disturbance
+in business might account for the delay. At all events it was late in
+April of the following year before the work was completed. Then Orsino
+went to Del Ferice.
+
+"Of course," he said, maintaining the appearance of calm which had now
+become habitual with him, "I cannot expect to pay what I owe the bank,
+unless I can effect a sale of these buildings. You have known that, all
+along, as well as I. The question is, can they be sold?"
+
+"You have no applicant, then?" Del Ferice looked grave and somewhat
+surprised.
+
+"No. We have received no offer."
+
+"You owe the bank a very large sum on these buildings, Don Orsino."
+
+"Secured by mortgages on them," answered the young man quietly, but
+preparing for trouble.
+
+"Just so. Secured by mortgages. But if the bank should foreclose within
+the next few months, and if the buildings do not realize the amount
+secured, Contini and Company are liable for the difference."
+
+"I know that."
+
+"And the market is very bad, Don Orsino, and shows no signs of
+improvement."
+
+"On the other hand the houses are finished, habitable, and can be let
+immediately."
+
+"They are certainly finished. You must be aware that the bank has
+continued to advance the sums necessary for two reasons. Firstly,
+because an expensive but habitable dwelling is better than a cheap one
+with no roof. Secondly, because in doing business with Andrea Contini
+and Company we have been dealing with the only really honest and
+economical firm in Rome."
+
+Orsino smiled vaguely, but said nothing. He had not much faith in Del
+Ferice's flattery.
+
+"But that," continued the latter, "does not dispense us from the
+necessity of realising what is owing to us--I mean the bank--either in
+money, or in an equivalent--or in an equivalent," he repeated,
+thoughtfully rolling a big silver pencil case backward and forward upon
+the table under his fat white hand.
+
+"Evidently," assented Orsino. "Unfortunately, at the present time, there
+seems to be no equivalent for ready money."
+
+"No--no--perhaps not," said Ugo, apparently becoming more and more
+absorbed in his own thoughts. "And yet," he added, after a little pause,
+"an arrangement may be possible. The houses certainly possess advantages
+over much of this wretched property which is thrown upon the market. The
+position is good and the work is good. Your work is very good, Don
+Orsino. You know that better than I. Yes--the houses have advantages, I
+admit. The bank has a great deal of waste masonry on its hands, Don
+Orsino--more than I like to think of."
+
+"Unfortunately, again, the time for improving such property is gone by."
+
+"It is never too late to mend, says the proverb," retorted Del Ferice
+with a smile. "I have a proposition to make. I will state it clearly. If
+it is not to our mutual advantage, I think neither of us will lose so
+much by it as we should lose in other ways. It is simply this. We will
+cry quits. You have a small account current with the bank, and you must
+sacrifice the credit balance--it is not much, I find--about thirty-five
+thousand."
+
+"That was chiefly the profit on the first contract," observed Orsino.
+
+"Precisely. It will help to cover the bank's loss on this. It will help,
+because when I say we will cry quits, I mean that you shall receive an
+equivalent for your houses--a nominal equivalent of course, which the
+bank nominally takes back as payment of the mortgages."
+
+"That is not very clear," said Orsino. "I do not understand you."
+
+"No," laughed Del Ferice. "I admit that it is not. It represented rather
+my own view of the transaction than the practical side. But I will
+explain myself beyond the possibility of mistake. The bank takes the
+houses and your cash balance and cancels the mortgages. You are then
+released from all debt and all obligation upon the old contract. But the
+bank makes one condition which, is important. You must buy from the
+bank, on mortgage of course, certain unfinished buildings which it now
+owns, and you--Andrea Contini and Company--must take a contract to
+complete them within a given time, the bank advancing you money as
+before upon notes of hand, secured by subsequent and successive
+mortgages."
+
+Orsino was silent. He saw that if he accepted, Del Ferice was receiving
+the work of a whole year and more without allowing the smallest profit
+to the workers, besides absorbing the profits of a previous successfully
+executed contract, and besides taking it for granted that the existing
+mortgages only just covered the value of the buildings. If, as was
+probable, Del Ferice had means of either selling or letting the houses,
+he stood to make an enormous profit. He saw, too, that if he accepted
+now, he must in all likelihood be driven to accept similar conditions on
+a future occasion, and that he would be binding Andrea Contini and
+himself to work, and to work hard, for nothing and perhaps during years.
+
+But he saw also that the only alternative was an appeal to his father,
+or bankruptcy which ultimately meant the same thing. Del Ferice spoke
+again.
+
+"Whether you agree, or whether you prefer a foreclosure, we shall both
+lose. But we should lose more by the latter course. In the interests of
+the bank I trust that you will accept. You see how frankly I speak about
+it. In the interests of the bank. But then, I need not remind you that
+it would hardly be fair to let us lose heavily when you can make the
+loss relatively a slight one--considering how the bank has behaved to
+you, and to you alone, throughout this fatal year."
+
+"I will give you an answer to-morrow," said Orsino.
+
+He thought of poor Contini who would find that he had worked for nothing
+during a whole year. But then, it would be easy for Orsino to give
+Contini a sum of money out of his private resources. Anything was better
+than giving up the struggle and applying to his father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Orsino was to all intents and purposes without a friend. How far
+circumstances had contributed to this result and how far he himself was
+to blame for his lonely state, those may judge who have followed his
+history to this point. His grandfather had indeed offered him help and
+in a way to make it acceptable if he had felt that he could accept it
+at all. But the old Prince did not in the least understand the business
+nor the situation. Moreover a young fellow of two or three and twenty
+does not look for a friend in the person of a man sixty years older than
+himself. While maintaining the most uniformly good relations in his
+home, Orsino felt himself estranged from his father and mother. His
+brothers were too young, and were generally away from home at school and
+college, and he had no sisters. Beyond the walls of the Palazzo
+Saracinesca, San Giacinto was the only man whom he would willingly have
+consulted; but San Giacinto was of all men the one least inclined to
+intimacy with his neighbours, and, after all, as Orsino reflected, he
+would probably repeat the advice he had already given, if he vouchsafed
+counsel of any kind.
+
+He thought of all his acquaintance and came to the conclusion that he
+was in reality in terms more closely approaching to friendship with
+Andrea Contini than with any man of his own class. Yet he would have
+hesitated to call the architect his friend, as he would have found it
+impossible to confide in him concerning any detail of his own private
+life.
+
+At a time when most young men are making friends, Orsino had been
+hindered, from the formation of such ties by the two great interests
+which had absorbed his existence, his attachment and subsequent love for
+Maria Consuelo, and the business at which he had worked so steadily. He
+had lost Maria Consuelo, in whom he would have confided as he had often
+done before, and at the present important juncture he stood quite alone.
+
+He felt that he was no match for Del Ferice. The keen banker was making
+use of him for his own purposes in a way which neither Orsino nor
+Contini had ever suspected. It could not be supposed that Ugo had
+foreseen from the first the advantage he might reap from the firm he had
+created and which was so wholly dependent on him. Orsino might have
+turned out ignorant and incapable. Contini might have proved idle and
+even dishonest. But, instead of this, the experiment had succeeded
+admirably and Ugo found himself possessed of an instrument, as it were,
+precisely adapted to his end, which was to make worthless property
+valuable at the smallest possible expense, in fact, at the lowest cost
+price. He had secured a first-rate architect and a first-rate
+accountant, both men of spotless integrity, both young, energetic and
+unusually industrious. He paid nothing for their services and he
+entirely controlled their expenditure. It was clear that he would do his
+utmost to maintain an arrangement so immensely profitable to himself. If
+Orsino had realised exactly how profitable it was, he might have forced
+Del Ferice to share the gain with him, and would have done so for the
+sake of Contini, if not for his own. He suspected, indeed, that Ugo was
+certain beforehand, in each case, of selling or letting the houses, but
+he had no proof of the fact. Ugo did not leave everything to his
+confidential clerk, and the secrets he kept to himself were well kept.
+
+Orsino consulted Contini, as a matter of necessity, before accepting Del
+Ferice's last offer. The architect went into a tragic-comic rage, bit
+his cigar through several times, ground his teeth, drank several glasses
+of cold water, talked of the blood of Cola di Rienzo, vowed vengeance on
+Del Ferice and finally submitted.
+
+The signing of the new contract determined the course of Orsino's life
+for another year. It is surprising to see, in the existence of others,
+how periods of monotonous calm succeed seasons of storm and danger. In
+our own they do not astonish us so much, if at all. Orsino continued to
+work hard, to live regularly and to do all those things which, under the
+circumstances he ought to have done and earned the reputation of being a
+model young man, a fact which surprised him on one or two occasions when
+it came to his ears. Yet when he reflected upon it, he saw that he was
+in reality not like other young men, and that his conduct was
+undoubtedly abnormally good as viewed by those around him. His
+grandfather began to look upon him as something almost unnatural, and
+more than once hinted to Giovanni that the boy, as he still called him,
+ought to behave like other boys.
+
+"He is more like San Giacinto than any of us," said Giovanni,
+thoughtfully. "He has taken after that branch."
+
+"If that is the case, he might have done worse," answered the old man.
+"I like San Giacinto. But you always judge superficially, Giovanni--you
+always did. And the worst of it is, you are always perfectly well
+satisfied with your own judgments."
+
+"Possibly. I have certainly not accepted those of others."
+
+"And the result is that you are turning into an oyster--and Orsino has
+begun to turn into an oyster, too, and the other boys will follow his
+example--a perfect oyster-bed! Go and take Orsino by the throat and
+shake him--"
+
+"I regret to say that I am physically not equal to that feat," said
+Giovanni with a laugh.
+
+"I should be!" exclaimed the aged Prince, doubling his hard hand and
+bringing it down on the table, while his bright eyes gleamed. "Go and
+shake him, and tell him to give up this dirty building business--make
+him give it up, buy him out of it, put plenty of money into his pockets
+and send him off to amuse himself! You and Corona have made a prig of
+him, and business is making an oyster of him, and he will be a hopeless
+idiot before you realise it! Stir him, shake him, make him move! I hate
+your furniture-man--who is always in the right place and always ready to
+be sat upon!"
+
+"If you can persuade him to give up affairs I have no objection."
+
+"Persuade him! I never knew a man worth speaking to who could be
+persuaded to anything he did not like. Make him--that is the way."
+
+"But since he is behaving himself and is occupied--that is better than
+the lives all these young fellows are leading."
+
+"Do not argue with me, Giovanni, I hate it. Besides, your reason is
+worth nothing at all. Did I spend my youth over accounts, in the society
+of an architect? Did I put water in my wine and sit up like a model
+little boy at my papa's table and spend my evenings in carrying my
+mamma's fan? Nonsense! And yet all that was expected in my day, in a way
+it is not expected now. Look at yourself. You are bad enough--dull
+enough, I mean. Did you waste the best years of your life in counting
+bricks and measuring mortar?"
+
+"You say that you hate argument, and yet you are arguing. But Orsino
+shall please himself, as I did, and in his own way. I will certainly not
+interfere."
+
+"Because you know you can do nothing with him!" retorted old Saracinesca
+contemptuously.
+
+Giovanni laughed. Twenty years earlier he would have lost his temper to
+no purpose. But twenty years of unruffled existence had changed him.
+
+"You are not the man you were," grumbled his father.
+
+"No. I have been too happy, far too long, to be much like what I was at
+thirty."
+
+"And do you mean to say I am not happy, and have not been happy, and do
+not mean to be happy, and do not wish everybody to be happy, so long as
+this old machine hangs together? What nonsense you talk, my boy. Go and
+make love to your wife. That is all you are fit for!"
+
+Discussions of this kind were not unfrequent but of course led to
+nothing. As a matter of fact Sant' Ilario was quite right in believing
+interference useless. It would have been impossible. He was no more able
+to change Orsino's determination than he was physically capable of
+shaking him. Not that Sant' Ilario was weak, physically or morally, nor
+ever had been. But his son had grown up to be stronger than he.
+
+Twelve months passed away. During that time the young man worked, as he
+had worked before, regularly and untiringly. But his object now was to
+free himself, and he no longer hoped to make a fortune or to do any
+thing beyond the strict execution of the contract he had in hand,
+determined if possible to avoid taking another. With a coolness and
+self-denial beyond his years, he systematically hoarded the allowance he
+received from his father, in order to put together a sum of money for
+poor Contini. He made economies everywhere, refused to go into society
+and spent his evenings in reading. His acquired manner stood him in good
+stead, but he could not bear more than a limited amount of the daily
+talk in the family. Being witty, rather than gay, if he could be said to
+be either, he found himself inclined rather to be bitter than amusing
+when he was wearied by the monotonous conversation of others. He knew
+this to be a mistake and controlled himself, taking refuge in solitude
+and books when he could control himself no longer.
+
+Whether he loved Maria Consuelo still, or not, it was clear that he was
+not inclined to love any one else for the present. The tolerably
+harmless dissipation and wildness of the two or three years he had spent
+in England could not account for such a period of coldness as followed
+his separation from Maria Consuelo. He had by no means exhausted the
+pleasures of life and his capacity for enjoyment could not even be said
+to have reached its height. But he avoided the society of women even
+more consistently than he shunned the club and the card table.
+
+More than a year had gone by since he had heard from Maria Consuelo. He
+met Spicca from time to time, looking now as though he had not a day to
+live, but neither of them mentioned past events. The Romans had talked a
+little of her sudden change of plans, for it had been known that she had
+begun to furnish a large apartment for the winter of the previous year,
+and had then very unaccountably changed her mind and left the place in
+the hands of an agent to be sub-let. People said she had lost her
+fortune. Then she had been forgotten in the general disaster that
+followed, and no one had taken the trouble to remember her since then.
+Even Gouache, who had once been so enthusiastic over her portrait, did
+not seem to know or care what had become of her. Once only, and quite
+accidentally, Orsino had authentic information of her whereabouts. He
+took up an English society journal one evening and glanced idly over the
+paragraphs. Maria Consuelo's name arrested his attention. A certain very
+high and mighty old lady of royal lineage was about to travel in Egypt
+during the winter. "Her Royal Highness," said the paper, "will be
+accompanied by the Countess d'Aranjuez d'Aragona." Orsino's hand shook a
+little as he laid the sheet aside, and he was pale when he rose a few
+moments later and went off to his own room. He could not help wondering
+why Maria Consuelo was styled by a title to which she certainly had a
+legal right, but which she had never before used, and he wondered still
+more why she travelled in Egypt with an old princess who was generally
+said to be anything but an agreeable companion, and was reported to be
+quite deaf. But on the whole he thought little of the information
+itself. It was the sight of Maria Consuelo's name which had moved him,
+and he was not altogether himself for several days. The impression wore
+off before long, and he followed the round of his monotonous life as
+before.
+
+Early in the month of March in the year 1890, he was seated alone in his
+room one evening before dinner. The great contract he had undertaken was
+almost finished, and he knew that within two months he would be placed
+in the same difficult position from which he had formerly so signally
+failed to extricate himself. That he and Contini had executed the terms
+of the contract with scrupulous and conscientious nicety did not better
+the position. That they had made the most strenuous efforts to find
+purchasers for the property, as they had a right to do if they could,
+and had failed, made the position hopeless or almost as bad as that.
+Whether they liked it or not, Del Ferice had so arranged that the great
+mass of their acceptances should fall due about the time when the work
+would be finished. To mortgage on the same terms or anything approaching
+the same terms with any other bank was out of the question, so that they
+had no hope of holding the property for the purpose of leasing it. Even
+if Orsino could have contemplated for a moment such an act of bad faith
+as wilfully retarding the work in order to gain a renewal of the bills,
+such a course could have led to no actual improvement in the situation.
+The property was unsaleable and Del Ferice knew it, and had no intention
+of selling it. He meant to keep it for himself and let it, as a
+permanent source of income. It would not have cost him in the end one
+half of its actual value, and was exceptionally good property. Orsino
+saw how hopeless it was to attempt resistance, unless he would resign
+himself to voting an appeal to his own people, and this, as of old, he
+was resolved not to do.
+
+He was reflecting upon his life of bondage when a servant brought him a
+letter. He tossed it aside without looking at it, but it chanced to slip
+from the polished table and fall to the ground. As he picked it up his
+attention was arrested by the handwriting and by the stamp. The stamp
+was Egyptian and the writing was that of Maria Consuelo. He started,
+tore open the envelope and took out a letter of many pages, written on
+thin paper. At first he found it hard to follow the characters, and his
+heart beat at a rate which annoyed him. He rose, walked the length of
+the room and back again, sat down in another seat close to the lamp and
+read the letter steadily from beginning to end.
+
+
+     "My Dear Friend--You may, perhaps, be surprised at hearing from me
+     after so long a time. I received your last letter. How long ago was
+     that? Twelve, fourteen, fifteen months? I do not know. It is as
+     well to forget, since I at least would rather not remember what you
+     wrote. And I write now--why? Simply because I have the impulse to
+     do so. That is the best of all reasons. I wish to hear from you,
+     which is selfish; and I wish to hear about you, which is not. Are
+     you still working at that business in which you were so much
+     interested? Or have you given it up and gone back to the life you
+     used to hate so thoroughly? I would like to know. Do you remember
+     how angry I was long ago, because you agreed to meet Del Ferice in
+     my drawing-room? I was very wrong, for the meeting led to many good
+     results. I like to think that you are not quite like all the young
+     men of your set, who do nothing--and cannot even do that
+     gracefully. I think you used those very words about yourself, once
+     upon a time. But you proved that you could live a very different
+     life if you chose. I hope you are living it still.
+
+     "And so poor Donna Tullia is dead--has been dead a year and a half!
+     I wrote Del Ferice a long letter when I got the news. He answered
+     me. He is not as bad as you used to think, for he was terribly
+     pained by his loss--I could see that well enough in what he wrote
+     though there was nothing exaggerated or desperate in the phrases.
+     In fact there were no phrases at all. I wish I had kept the letter
+     to send to you, but I never keep letters. Poor Donna Tullia! I
+     cannot imagine Rome without her. It would certainly not be the same
+     place to me, for she was uniformly kind and thoughtful where I was
+     concerned, whatever she may have been to others.
+
+     "Echoes reach me from time to time in different parts of the world,
+     as I travel, and Rome seems to be changed in many ways. They say
+     the ruin was dreadful when the crash came. I suppose you gave up
+     business then, as was natural, since they say there is no more
+     business to do. But I would be glad to know that nothing
+     disagreeable happened to you in the financial storm. I confess to
+     having felt an unaccountable anxiety about you of late. Perhaps
+     that is why I write and why I hope for an answer at once. I have
+     always looked upon presentiments and forewarnings and all such
+     intimations as utterly false and absurd, and I do not really
+     believe that anything has happened or is happening to distress you.
+     But it is our woman's privilege to be inconsistent, and we should
+     be still more inconsistent if we did not use it. Besides I have
+     felt the same vague disquietude about you more than once before and
+     have not written. Perhaps I should not write even now unless I had
+     a great deal more time at my disposal than I know what to do with.
+     Who knows? If you are busy, write a word on a post-card, just to
+     say that nothing is the matter. Here in Egypt we do not realise
+     what time means, and certainly not that it can ever mean money.
+
+     "It is an idle life, less idle for me perhaps than for some of
+     those about me, but even for me not over-full of occupations. The
+     climate occupies all the time not actually spent in eating,
+     sleeping and visiting ruins. It is fair, I suppose, to tell you
+     something of myself since I ask for news of you. I will tell you
+     what I can.
+
+     "I am travelling with an old lady, as her companion--not exactly
+     out of inclination and yet not exactly out of duty. Is that too
+     mysterious? Do you see me as Companion and general amuser to an old
+     lady--over seventy years of age? No. I presume not. And I am not
+     with her by necessity either, for I have not suffered any losses.
+     On the contrary, since I dismissed a certain person--an attendant,
+     we will call her--from my service, it seems to me that my income is
+     doubled. The attendant, by the bye, has opened a hotel on the Lake
+     of Como. Perhaps you, who are so good a man of business, may see
+     some connexion between these simple facts. I was never good at
+     managing money, nor at understanding what it meant. It seems that I
+     have not inherited all the family talents.
+
+     "But I return to Egypt, to the Nile, to this dahabiyah, on board of
+     which it has pleased the fates to dispose my existence for the
+     present. I am not called a companion, but a lady in waiting, which
+     would be only another term for the same thing, if I were not really
+     very much attached to the Princess, old and deaf as she is. And
+     that is saying a great deal. No one knows what deafness means who
+     has not read aloud to a deaf person, which is what I do every day.
+     I do not think I ever told you about her. I have known her all my
+     life, ever since I was a little girl in the convent in Vienna. She
+     used to come and see me and bring me good things--and books of
+     prayers--I remember especially a box of candied fruits which she
+     told me came from Kiew. I have never eaten any like them since. I
+     wonder how many sincere affections between young and old people owe
+     their existence originally to a confectioner!
+
+     "When I left Rome, I met her again in Nice. She was there with the
+     Prince, who was in wretched health and who died soon afterwards. He
+     never was so fond of me as she was. After his death, she asked me
+     to stay with her as long as I would. I do not think I shall leave
+     her again so long as she lives. She treats me like her own
+     child--or rather, her grandchild--and besides, the life suits me
+     very well. I am, really, perfectly independent, and yet I am
+     perfectly protected. I shall not repeat the experiment of living
+     alone for three years, until I am much older.
+
+     "It is a rather strange friendship. My Princess knows all about
+     me--all that you know. I told her one day and she did not seem at
+     all surprised. I thought I owed her the truth about myself, since I
+     was to live with her, and since she had always been so kind to me.
+     She says I remind her of her daughter, the poor young Princess
+     Marie, who died nearly thirty years ago. In Nice, too, like her
+     father, poor girl. She was only just nineteen, and very beautiful
+     they say. I suppose the dear good old lady fancies she sees some
+     resemblance even now, though I am so much older than her daughter
+     was when she died. There is the origin of our friendship--the
+     trivial and the tragic--confectionery and death--a box of candied
+     fruits and an irreparable loss! If there were no contrasts what
+     would the world be? All one or the other, I suppose. All death, or
+     all Kiew sweetmeats.
+
+     "I suppose you know what life in Egypt is like. If you have not
+     tried it yourself, your friends have and can describe it to you. I
+     will certainly not inflict my impressions upon your friendship. It
+     would be rather a severe test--perhaps yours would not bear it, and
+     then I should be sorry.
+
+     "Do you know? I like to think that I have a friend in you. I like
+     to remember the time when you used to talk to me of all your
+     plans--the dear old time! I would rather remember that than much
+     which came afterwards. You have forgiven me for all I did, and are
+     glad, now, that I did it. Yes, I can fancy your smile. You do not
+     see yourself, Prince Saracinesca, Prince Sant' Ilario, Duke of
+     Whatever-it-may-be, Lord of ever so many What-are-their-names,
+     Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Grandee of Spain of the First
+     Class, Knight of Malta and Hereditary Something to the Holy See--in
+     short the tremendous personage you will one day be--you do not
+     exactly see yourself as the son-in-law of the Signora Lucrezia
+     Ferris, proprietor of a tourist's hotel on the Lake of Como!
+     Confess that the idea was an absurdity! As for me, I will confess
+     that I did very wrong. Had I known all the truth on that
+     afternoon--do you remember the thunderstorm? I would have saved you
+     much, and I should have saved myself--well--something. But we have
+     better things to do than to run after shadows. Perhaps it is as
+     well not even to think of them. It is all over now. Whatever you
+     may think of it all, forgive your old friend,
+
+     Maria Consuelo d'A."
+
+Orsino read the long letter to the end, and sat a while thinking over
+the contents. Two points in it struck him especially. In the first place
+it was not the letter of a woman who wished to call back a man she had
+dismissed. There was no sentiment in it, or next to none. She professed
+herself contented in her life, if not happy, and in one sentence she
+brought before him the enormous absurdity of the marriage he had once
+contemplated. He had more than once been ashamed of not making some
+further direct effort to win her again. He was now suddenly conscious of
+the great influence which her first letter, containing the statement of
+her parentage, had really exercised over him. Strangely enough, what she
+now wrote reconciled him, as it were, with himself. It had turned out
+best, after all.
+
+That he loved her still, he felt sure, as he held in his hand the pages
+she had written and felt the old thrill he knew so well in his fingers,
+and the old, quick beating of the heart. But he acknowledged gladly--too
+gladly, perhaps--that he had done well to let her go.
+
+Then came the second impression. "I like to remember the time when you
+used to talk to me of all your plans." The words rang in his ears and
+called up delicious visions of the past, soft hours spent by her side
+while she listened with something warmer than patience to the outpouring
+of his young hopes and aspirations. She, at least, had understood him,
+and encouraged him, and strengthened him with her sympathy. And why not
+now, if then? Why should she not understand him now, when he most needed
+a friend, and give him sympathy now, when he stood most in need of it?
+She was in Egypt and he in Rome, it was true. But what of that? If she
+could write to him, he could write to her, and she could answer him
+again. No one had ever felt with him as she had.
+
+He did not hesitate long. On that same evening, after dinner, he went
+back to his own room and wrote to her. It was a little hard at first,
+but, as the ink flowed, he expressed himself better and more clearly.
+With an odd sort of caution, which had grown upon him of late, he tried
+to make his letter take a form as similar to hers as possible.
+
+
+     "MY DEAR FRIEND" (he wrote)--"If people always yielded to their
+     impulses as you have done in writing to me, there would be more
+     good fellowship and less loneliness in the world. It would not be
+     easy for me to tell you how great a pleasure you have given me.
+     Perhaps, hereafter, I may compare it to your own memory of the Kiew
+     candied fruits! For the present I do not find a worthy comparison
+     to my hand.
+
+     "You ask many questions. I propose to answer them all. Will you
+     have the patience to read what I write? I hope so, for the sake of
+     the time when I used to talk to you of all my plans--and which you
+     say you like to remember. For another reason, too. I have never
+     felt so lonely in my life as I feel now, nor so much in need of a
+     friend--not a helping friend, but one to whom I can speak a little
+     freely. I am very much alone. A sort of estrangement has grown up
+     between my mother and me, and she no longer takes my side in all I
+     want to do, as she did once.
+
+     "I will be quite plain. I will tell you all my troubles, because
+     there is not another person in the world to whom I could tell
+     them--and because I know that they will not trouble you. You will
+     feel a little friendly sympathy, and that will be enough. But you
+     will feel no pain. After all, I daresay that I exaggerate, and that
+     there is nothing so very painful in the matter, as it will strike
+     you. But the case is serious, as you will see. It involves my life,
+     perhaps for many years to come.
+
+     "I am completely in Del Ferice's power. A year ago I had the
+     possibility of freeing myself. What do you think that chance was? I
+     could have gone to my grandfather and asked him to lay down a sum
+     of money sufficient to liberate me, or I could have refused Del
+     Ferice's new offer and allowed myself to be declared bankrupt. My
+     abominable vanity stood in the way of my following either of those
+     plans. In less than two months I shall be placed in the same
+     position again. But the circumstances are changed. The sum of money
+     is so considerable that I would not like to ask all my family, with
+     their three fortunes, to contribute it. The business is enormous. I
+     have an establishment like a bank and Contini--you remember
+     Contini?--has several assistant architects. Moreover we stand
+     alone. There is no other firm of the kind left, and our failure
+     would be a very disagreeable affair. But so long as I remain Del
+     Ferice's slave, we shall not fail. Do you know that this great and
+     successful firm is carried on systematically without a centime of
+     profit to the partners, and with the constant threat of a
+     disgraceful failure, used to force me on? Do you think that if I
+     chose the alternative, any one would believe, or that my tyrant
+     would let any one believe, that Orsino Saracinesca had served Ugo
+     Del Ferice for years--two years and a half before long--as a sort
+     of bondsman? I am in a very unenviable position. I am sure that Del
+     Ferice made use of me at first for his own ends--that is, to make
+     money for him. The magnitude of the sums which pass through my
+     hands makes me sure that he is now backed by a powerful syndicate,
+     probably of foreign bankers who lost money in the Roman crash, and
+     who see a chance of getting it back through Del Ferice's
+     management. It is a question of millions. You do not understand?
+     Will you try to read my explanation?"
+
+And here Orsino summed up his position towards Del Ferice in a clear and
+succinct statement, which it is not necessary to reproduce here. It
+needed no talent for business on Maria Consuelo's part to understand
+that he was bound hand and foot.
+
+
+     "One of three things must happen" (Orsino continued). "I must
+     cripple, if not ruin, the fortune of my family, or I must go
+     through a scandalous bankruptcy, or I must continue to be Ugo Del
+     Ferice's servant during the best years of my life. My only
+     consolation is that I am unpaid. I do not speak of poor Contini. He
+     is making a reputation, it is true, and Del Ferice gives him
+     something which I increase as much as I can. Considering our
+     positions, he is the more completely sacrificed of the two, poor
+     fellow--and through my fault. If I had only had the courage to put
+     my vanity out of the way eighteen months ago, I might have saved
+     him as well as myself. I believed myself a match for Del
+     Ferice--and I neither was nor ever shall be. I am a little
+     desperate.
+
+     "That is my life, my dear friend. Since you have not quite
+     forgotten me, write me a word of that good old sympathy on which I
+     lived so long. It may soon be all I have to live on. If Del Ferice
+     should have the bad taste to follow Donna Tullia to Saint
+     Lawrence's, nothing could save me. I should no longer have the
+     alternative of remaining his slave in exchange for safety from
+     bankruptcy to myself and ruin--or something like it--to my father.
+
+     "But let us talk no more about it all. But for your kindly letter,
+     no one would ever have known all this, except Contini. In your calm
+     Egyptian life--thank God, dear, that your life is calm!--my story
+     must sound like a fragment from an unpleasant dream. One thing you
+     do not tell me. Are you happy, as well as peaceful? I would like to
+     know. I am not.
+
+     "Pray write again, when you have time--and inclination. If there is
+     anything to be done for you in Rome--any little thing, or great
+     thing either--command your old friend,
+
+     "ORSINO SARACINESCA."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+Orsino posted his letter with an odd sensation of relief. He felt that
+he was once more in communication with humanity, since he had been able
+to speak out and tell some one of the troubles that oppressed him. He
+had assuredly no reason for being more hopeful than before, and matters
+were in reality growing more serious every day; but his heart was
+lighter and he took a more cheerful view of the future, almost against
+his own better judgment.
+
+He had not expected to receive an answer from Maria Consuelo for some
+time and was surprised when one came in less than ten days from the date
+of his writing. This letter was short, hurriedly written and carelessly
+worded, but there was a ring of anxiety for him in every line of it
+which he could not misinterpret. Not only did she express the deepest
+sympathy for him and assure him that all he did still had the liveliest
+interest for her, but she also insisted upon being informed of the state
+of his affairs as often as possible. He had spoken of three
+possibilities, she said. Was there not a fourth somewhere? There might
+often be an issue from the most desperate situation, of which no one
+dreamed. Could she not help him to discover where it lay in this case?
+Could they not write to each other and find it out together?
+
+Orsino looked uneasily at the lines, and the blood rose to his temples.
+Did she mean what she said, or more, or less? He was overwrought and
+over-sensitive, and she had written thoughtlessly, as though not
+weighing her words, but only following an impulse for which she had no
+time to find the proper expression. She could not imagine that he would
+accept substantial help from her--still less that he would consent to
+marry her for the sake of the fortune which might save him. He grew very
+angry, then turned cold again, and then, reading the words again, saw
+that he had no right to attach any such meaning to them. Then it struck
+him that even if, by any possibility, she had meant to convey such an
+idea, he would have no right at all to resent it. Women, he reflected,
+did not look upon such matters as men did. She had refused to marry him
+when he was prosperous. If she meant that she would marry him now, to
+save him from ruin, he could not but acknowledge that she was carrying
+devotion near to its farthest limit. But the words themselves would not
+bear such an interpretation. He was straining language too far in
+suggesting it.
+
+"And yet she means something," he said to himself. "Something which I
+cannot understand."
+
+He wrote again, maintaining the tone of his first letter more carefully
+than she had done on her part, though not sparing the warmest
+expressions of heartfelt thanks for the sympathy she had so readily
+given. But there was no fourth way, he said. One of those three things
+which he had explained to her must happen. There was no hope, and he was
+resigned to continue his existence of slavery until Del Ferice's death
+brought about the great crisis of his life. Not that Del Ferice was in
+any danger of dying, he added, in spite of the general gossip about his
+bad health. Such men often outlasted stronger people, as Ugo had
+outlived Donna Tullia. Not that his death would improve matters, either,
+as they stood at present. That he had explained before. If the count
+died now, there were ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that Orsino
+would be ruined. For the present, nothing would happen. In little more
+than a month--in six weeks at the utmost--a new arrangement would be
+forced upon him, binding him perhaps for years to come. Del Ferice had
+already spoken to him of a great public undertaking, at least half of
+the contract for which could easily be secured or controlled by his
+bank. He had added that this might be a favourable occasion for Andrea
+Contini and Company to act in concert with the bank. Orsino knew what
+that meant. Indeed, there was no possibility of mistaking the meaning,
+which was clear enough. The fourth plan could only lie in finding
+beforehand a purchaser for buildings which could not be so disposed of,
+because they were built for a particular purpose, and could only be
+bought by those who had ordered them, namely persons whom Del Ferice so
+controlled that he could postpone their appearance if he chose and drive
+Orsino into a failure at any moment after the completion of the work.
+For instance, one of those buildings was evidently intended for a
+factory, and probably for a match factory. Del Ferice, in requiring that
+Contini and Company should erect what he had already arranged to dispose
+of, had vaguely remarked that there were no match factories in Rome and
+that perhaps some one would like to buy one. If Orsino had been less
+desperate he would willingly have risked much to resent the suave
+insolence. As it was, he had laughed in his tyrant's face, and bitterly
+enough; a form of insult, however, to which Ugo was supremely
+indifferent. These and many other details Orsino wrote to Maria
+Consuelo, pouring out his confidence with the assurance of a man who
+asks nothing but sympathy and is sure of receiving that in overflowing
+measure. He no longer waited for her answers, as the crucial moment
+approached, but wrote freely from day to day, as he felt inclined.
+There was little which he did not tell her in the dozen or fifteen
+letters he penned in the course of the month. Like many reticent men who
+have never taken up a pen except for ordinary correspondence or for the
+routine work of a business requiring accuracy, and who all at once begin
+to write the history of their daily lives for the perusal of one trusted
+person, Orsino felt as though he had found a new means of expression and
+abandoned himself willingly to the comparative pleasure of complete
+confidence. Like all such men, too, he unconsciously exhibited the chief
+fault of his character in his long, diary-like letters. That fault was
+his vanity. Had he been describing a great success he could and would
+have concealed it better; in writing of his own successive errors and
+disappointments he showed by the excessive blame he cast upon himself,
+how deeply that vanity of his was wounded. It is possible that Maria
+Consuelo discovered this. But she made no profession of analysis, and
+while appearing outwardly far colder than Orsino, she seemed much more
+disposed than he to yield to unexpected impulses when she felt their
+influence. And Orsino was quite unconscious that he might be exhibiting
+the defects of his moral nature to eyes keener than his own.
+
+He wrote constantly therefore, with the utmost freedom, and in the
+moments while he was writing he enjoyed a faint illusion of increased
+safety, as though he were retarding the events of the future by
+describing minutely those of the past. More than once again Maria
+Consuelo answered him, and always in the same strain, doing her best,
+apparently, to give him hope and to reconcile him with himself. However
+much he might condemn his own lack of foresight, she said, no man who
+did his best according to his best judgment, and who acted honourably,
+was to be blamed for the result, though it might involve the ruin of
+thousands. That was her chief argument and it comforted him, and seemed
+to relieve him from a small part of the responsibility which weighed so
+heavily upon his shoulders, a burden now grown so heavy that the least
+lightening of it made him feel comparatively free until called upon to
+face facts again and fight with realities.
+
+But events would not be retarded, and Orsino's own good qualities tended
+to hasten them, as they had to a great extent been the cause of his
+embarrassment ever since the success of his first attempt, in making him
+valuable as a slave to be kept from escaping at all risks. The system
+upon which the business was conducted was admirable. It had been good
+from the beginning and Orsino had improved it to a degree very uncommon
+in Rome. He had mastered the science of book-keeping in a short time,
+and had forced himself to an accuracy of detail and a promptness of
+ready reference which would have surprised many an old professional
+clerk. It must be remembered that from the first he had found little
+else to do. The technical work had always been in Contini's hands, and
+Del Ferice's forethought had relieved them both from the necessity of
+entering upon financial negotiations requiring time, diplomatic tact and
+skill of a higher order. The consequence was that Orsino had devoted the
+whole of his great energy and native talent for order to the keeping of
+the books, with the result that when a contract had been executed there
+was hardly any accountant's work to be done. Nominally, too, Andrea
+Contini and Company were not responsible to any one for their
+book-keeping; but in practice, and under pretence of rendering valuable
+service, Del Ferice sent an auditor from time to time to look into the
+state of affairs, a proceeding which Contini bitterly resented while
+Orsino expressed himself perfectly indifferent to the interference, on
+the ground that there was nothing to conceal. Had the books been badly
+kept, the final winding up of each contract would have been retarded for
+one or more weeks. But the more deeply Orsino became involved, the more
+keenly he felt the value and, at last, the vital importance, of the
+most minute accuracy. If worse came to worst and he should be obliged
+to fail, through Del Ferice's sudden death or from any other cause, his
+reputation as an honourable man might depend upon this very accuracy of
+detail, by which he would be able to prove that in the midst of great
+undertakings, and while very large sums of money were passing daily
+through his hands, he had never received even the very smallest share of
+the profits absorbed by the bank. He even kept a private account of his
+own expenditure on the allowance he received from his father, in order
+that, if called upon, he might be able to prove how large a part of that
+allowance he regularly paid to poor Contini as compensation for the
+unhappy position in which the latter found himself. If bankruptcy
+awaited him, his failure would, if the facts were properly made known,
+reckon as one of the most honourable on record, though he was pleased to
+look upon such a contingency as a certain source of scandal and more
+than possible disgrace.
+
+Unconsciously his own determined industry in book-keeping gave him a
+little more confidence. In his great anxiety he was spared the terrible
+uncertainty felt by a man who does not precisely know his own financial
+position at a given critical moment. His studiously acquired outward
+calm also stood him in good stead. Even San Giacinto who knew the
+financial world as few men knew it watched his youthful cousin with
+curiosity and not without a certain sympathy and a very little
+admiration. The young man's face was growing stern and thoughtful like
+his own, lean, grave and strong. San Giacinto remembered that night a
+year and a half earlier when he had warned Orsino of the coming danger,
+and he was almost displeased with himself now for having taken a step
+which seemed to have been unnecessary. It was San Giacinto's principle
+never to do anything unnecessary, because a useless action meant a loss
+of time and therefore a loss of advantage over the adversary of the
+moment. San Giacinto, in different circumstances, would have made a
+good general--possibly a great one; his strange life had made him a
+financier of a type singular and wholly different from that of the men
+with whom he had to deal. He never sought to gain an advantage by a
+deception, but he won everything by superior foresight, imperturbable
+coolness, matchless rapidity of action and undaunted courage under all
+circumstances. It needs higher qualities to be a good man, but no others
+are needed to make a successful one. Orsino possessed something of the
+same rapidity and much of a similar coolness and courage, but he lacked
+the foresight. It was vanity, of the most pardonable kind, indeed, but
+vanity nevertheless which had led him to embark upon his dangerous
+enterprise--not in the determination to accomplish for the sake of
+accomplishing, still less in the direct desire for wealth as an ultimate
+object, but in the almost boyish longing to show to his own people that
+there was more in him than they suspected. The gift of foresight is
+generally weakened by the presence of vanity, but when vanity takes its
+place the result is as likely to be failure as not, and depends almost
+directly upon chance alone.
+
+The crisis in Orsino's life was at hand, and what has here been finally
+said of his position at that time seemed necessary, as summing up the
+consequences to him of more than two years' unremitting labour, during
+which he had become involved in affairs of enormous consequence at an
+age when most young men are spending their time, more profitably perhaps
+and certainly more agreeably, in such pleasures and pursuits as mother
+society provides for her half-fledged nestlings.
+
+On the day before his final interview with Del Ferice Orsino wrote a
+lengthy letter to Maria Consuelo. As she did not receive it until long
+afterwards it is quite unnecessary to give any account of its contents.
+Some time had passed since he had heard from her and he was not sure
+whether or not she were still in Egypt. But he wrote to her,
+nevertheless, drawing much fictitious comfort and little real advantage
+from the last clear statement of his difficulties. By this time, writing
+to her had become a habit and he resorted to it naturally when over
+wearied by work and anxiety.
+
+On this same day also he had spent several hours in talking over the
+situation with Contini. The architect, strange to say, was more
+reconciled with his position than he had formerly been. He, at least,
+received a certain substantial remuneration. He, at least, loved his
+profession and rejoiced in the handling of great masses of brick and
+stone. He, too, was rapidly making a reputation and a name for himself,
+and, if business improved, was not prevented from entering into other
+enterprises besides the one in which he found himself so deeply
+interested. As a member of the firm, he could not free himself. As an
+architect, he could have an architect's office of his own and build for
+any one who chose to employ him. For his own part, he said, he might
+perhaps be more profitably employed upon less important work; but then,
+he might not, for business was very bad. The great works in which Del
+Ferice kept him engaged had the incalculable advantage of bringing him
+constantly before the public as an architect and of keeping his name,
+which was the name of the firm, continually in the notice of all men of
+business. He was deeply indebted to Orsino for the generous help given
+when the realities of profit were so greatly at variance with the
+appearances of prosperity. He would always regard repayment of the money
+so advanced to him as a debt of honour and he hoped to live long enough
+to extinguish it. He sympathised with Orsino in his desire to be freer
+and more independent, but reminded him that when the day of liberation
+came, he would not regret the comparatively short apprenticeship during
+which he had acquired so great a mastery of business. Business, he said,
+had been Orsino's ambition from the beginning, and business he had, in
+plenty, if not with profit. For his own part, he was satisfied.
+
+Orsino felt that his partner could not be blamed, and he felt, too, that
+he would be doing Contini a great injury in involving him in a failure.
+But he regretted the time when their interests had coincided and they
+had cursed Del Ferice in common and with a good will. There was nothing
+to be done but to submit. He knew well enough what awaited him.
+
+On the following morning, by appointment, he went with a heavy heart to
+meet Del Ferice at the bank. The latter had always preferred to see
+Orsino without Contini when a new contract was to be discussed. As a
+personal acquaintance he treated with Orsino on a footing of social
+equality, and the balance of outwardly agreeable relations would have
+been disturbed by the presence of a social inferior. Moreover, Del
+Ferice knew the Saracinesca people tolerably well, and though not so
+timid as many people supposed, he somewhat dreaded a sudden outbreak of
+the hereditary temper; if such a manifestation really took place, it
+would be more agreeable that there should be no witnesses of it.
+
+Orsino was surprised to find that Ugo was out of town. Having made an
+appointment, he ought at least to have sent word to the Palazzo
+Saracinesca of his departure. He had indeed left a message for Orsino,
+which was correctly delivered, to the effect that he would return in
+twenty-four hours, and requesting him to postpone the interview until
+the following afternoon. In Orsino's humour this was not altogether
+pleasant. The young man felt little suspense indeed, for he knew how
+matters must turn out, and that he should be saddled with another
+contract. But he found it hard to wait with equanimity, now that he had
+made up his mind to the worst, and he resented Del Ferice's rudeness in
+not giving a civil warning of his intended journey.
+
+The day passed somehow, at last, and towards evening Orsino received a
+telegram from Ugo, full of excuses, but begging to put off the meeting
+two days longer. The dispatch was from Naples whither Del Ferice often
+went on business.
+
+It was almost unbearable and yet it must be borne. Orsino spent his time
+in roaming about the less frequented parts of the city, trying to make
+new plans for the future which was already planned for him, doing his
+best to follow out a distinct line of thought, if only to distract his
+own attention. He could not even write to Maria Consuelo, for he felt
+that he had said all there was to be said, in his last long letter.
+
+On the morning of the fourth day he went to the bank again. Del Ferice
+was there and greeted him warmly, interweaving his phrases with excuses
+for his absence.
+
+"You will forgive me, I am sure," he said, "though I have put you to
+very great inconvenience. The case was urgent and I could not leave it
+in the hands of others. Of course you could have settled the business
+with another of the directors, but I think--indeed, I know--that you
+prefer only to see me in these matters. We have worked together so long
+now, that we understand each other with half a word. Really, I am very
+sorry to have kept you waiting so long!"
+
+"It is of no importance," answered Orsino coolly. "Pray do not speak of
+it."
+
+"Of importance--no--perhaps not. That is, as you could not lose by it,
+it was not of financial importance. But when I have made an engagement,
+I like to keep it. In business, so much depends upon keeping small
+engagements--and they may mean quite as much in the relations of
+society. However, as you are so kind, we will not speak of it again. I
+have made my excuses and you have accepted them. Let that end the
+matter. To business, now, Don Orsino--to business!"
+
+Orsino fancied that Del Ferice's manner was not quite natural. He was
+generally more quiet. His rather watery blue eyes did not usually look
+so wide awake, his fat white hands were not commonly so active in their
+gestures. Altogether he seemed more nervous, and at the same time better
+pleased with himself and with life than usual. Orsino wondered what had
+happened. He had perhaps made some very successful stroke in his
+affairs during the three days he had spent in Naples.
+
+"So let us now have a look into your contracts, Don Orsino," he said.
+"Or rather, look into the state of the account yourself if you wish to
+do so, for I have already examined it."
+
+"I am familiar enough with the details," answered the young man. "I do
+not need to look over everything. The books have been audited as you
+see. The only thing left to be done is to hand over the work to you,
+since it is executed according to the contract. You doubtless remember
+that verbal part of the agreement. You receive the buildings as they now
+stand and our credit cash if there is any, in full discharge of all the
+obligations of Andrea Contini and Company to the bank--acceptances
+coming due, balance of account if in debit, and mortgages on land and
+houses--and we are quits again, my firm being discharged of all
+obligation."
+
+Del Ferice's expression changed a little and became more grave.
+
+"Doubtless," he answered, "there was a tacit understanding to that
+effect. Yes--yes--I remember. Indeed it was not altogether tacit. A word
+was said about it, and a word is as good as a contract. Very well, Don
+Orsino--very well. Since you desire it, we will cry quits again. This
+kind of business is not very profitable to the bank--not very--but it is
+not actual loss."
+
+"It is not profitable to us," observed Orsino. "If you do not wish any
+more of it, we do not."
+
+"Really?"
+
+Del Ferice looked at him rather curiously as though wishing that he
+would say more. Orsino met his glance steadily, expecting to be informed
+of the nature of the next contract to be forced upon him.
+
+"So you really prefer to discontinue these operations--if I may call
+them so," said Del Ferice thoughtfully. "It is strange that you should,
+I confess. I remember that you much desired to take a part in affairs,
+to be an actor in the interesting doings of the day, to be a financial
+personage, in short. You have had your wish, Don Orsino. Your firm plays
+an important part in Rome. Do you remember our first interview on the
+steps of Monte Citorio? You asked me whether I could and would help you
+to enter business. I promised that I would, and I have kept my word. The
+sums mentioned in those papers, here, show that I have done all I
+promised. You told me that you had fifteen thousand francs at your
+disposal. From that small beginning I have shown you how to deal with
+millions. But you do not seem to care for business, after all, Don
+Orsino. You really do not seem to care for it, though I must confess
+that you have a remarkable talent. It is very strange."
+
+"Is it?" asked Orsino with a shade of contempt. "You may remember that
+my business has not been profitable, in spite of what you call my
+talent, and in spite of what I know to have been hard work."
+
+Del Ferice smiled softly.
+
+"That is quite another matter," he answered. "If you had asked me
+whether you could make a fortune at this time, I would have told you
+that it was quite impossible without enormous capital. Quite impossible.
+Understand that, if you please. But, negatively, you have profited,
+because others have failed--hundreds of firms and contractors--while you
+have lost but the paltry fifteen thousand or so with which you began.
+And you have acquired great knowledge and experience. Therefore, on the
+whole, you have been the gainer. In balancing an account one takes but
+the sordid debit and credit and compares them--but in estimating the
+value of a firm one should consider its reputation and the goodwill it
+has created. The name of Andrea Contini and Company is a power in Rome.
+That is the result of your work, and it is not a loss."
+
+Orsino said nothing, but leaned back in his chair, gloomily staring at
+the wall. He wondered when Del Ferice would come to the point, and begin
+to talk about the new contract.
+
+"You do not seem to agree with me," observed Ugo in an injured tone.
+
+"Not altogether, I confess," replied the young man with a contemptuous
+laugh.
+
+"Well, well--it is no matter--it is of no importance--of no consequence
+whatever," said Del Fence, who seemed inclined to repeat himself and to
+lengthen, his phrases as though he wished to gain time. "Only this, Don
+Orsino. I would remind you that you have just executed a piece of work
+successfully, which no other firm in Rome could have carried out without
+failure, under the present depression. It seems to me that you have
+every reason to congratulate yourself. Of course, it was impossible for
+me to understand that you really cared for a large profit--for actual
+money--"
+
+"And I do not," interrupted Orsino with more warmth than he had hitherto
+shown.
+
+"But, in that case, you ought to be more than satisfied," objected Ugo
+suavely.
+
+Orsino grew impatient at last and spoke out frankly.
+
+"I cannot be satisfied with a position of absolute dependence, from
+which I cannot escape except by bankruptcy. You know that I am
+completely in your power. You know very well that while you are talking
+to me now you contemplate making your usual condition before crying
+quits, as you express it. You intend to impose another and probably a
+larger piece of work on me, which I shall be obliged to undertake on the
+same terms as before, because if I do not accept it, it is in your power
+to ruin me at once. And this state of things may go on for years. That
+is the enviable position of Andrea Contini and Company."
+
+Del Ferice assumed an air of injured dignity.
+
+"If you think anything of this kind you greatly misjudge me," he said.
+
+"I do not see why I should judge otherwise," retorted Orsino. "That is
+exactly what took place on the last occasion, and what will take place
+now--"
+
+"I think not," said Del Ferice very quietly, and watching him.
+
+Orsino was somewhat startled by the words, but his face betrayed
+nothing. It was clear to him that Ugo had something new to propose, and
+it was not easy to guess the nature of the coming proposition.
+
+"Will you kindly explain yourself?" he asked.
+
+"My dear Don Orsino, there is nothing to explain," replied Del Ferice
+again becoming very bland.
+
+"I do not understand."
+
+"No? It is very simple. You have finished the buildings. The bank will
+take them over and consider the account closed. You stated the position
+yourself in the most precise terms. I do not see why you should suppose
+that the bank wishes to impose anything upon you which you are not
+inclined to accept. I really do not see why you should think anything of
+the kind."
+
+In the dead silence which followed Orsino could hear his own heart
+beating loudly. He wondered whether he had heard aright. He wondered
+whether this were not some new manoeuvre on Del Ferice's part by which
+he must ultimately fall still more completely under the banker's
+domination. Ugo doubtless meant to qualify what he had just said by
+adding a clause. Orsino waited for what was to follow.
+
+"Am I to understand that this does not suit your wishes?" inquired Ugo,
+presently.
+
+"On the contrary, it would suit me perfectly," answered Orsino
+controlling his voice with some difficulty.
+
+"In that case, there is nothing more to be said," observed Del Ferice.
+"The bank will give you a formal release--indeed, I think the notary is
+at this moment here. I am very glad to be able to meet your views, Don
+Orsino. Very glad, I am sure. It is always pleasant to find that
+amicable relations have been preserved after a long and somewhat
+complicated business connexion. The bank owes it to you, I am sure--"
+
+"I am quite willing to owe that to the bank," answered Orsino with a
+ready smile. He was almost beside himself with joy.
+
+"You are very good, I assure you," said Del Ferice, with much
+politeness. He touched a bell and his confidential clerk appeared.
+
+"Cancel these drafts," he said, giving the man a small bundle of bills.
+"Direct the notary to prepare a deed of sale, transferring all this
+property, as was done before--" he hesitated. "I will see him myself in
+ten minutes," he added. "It will be simpler. The account of Andrea
+Contini is balanced and closed. Make out a preliminary receipt for all
+dues whatsoever and bring it to me."
+
+The clerk stared for one moment as though he believed that Del Ferice
+were mad. Then he went out.
+
+"I am sorry to lose you, Don Orsino," said Del Ferice, thoughtfully
+rolling his big silver pencil case on the table. "All the legal papers
+will be ready to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"Pray express to the directors my best thanks for so speedily winding up
+the business," answered Orsino. "I think that, after all, I have no
+great talent for affairs."
+
+"On the contrary, on the contrary," protested Ugo. "I have a great deal
+to say against that statement." And he eulogised Orsino's gifts almost
+without pausing for breath until the clerk returned with the preliminary
+receipt. Del Ferice signed it and handed it to Orsino with a smile.
+
+"This was unnecessary," said the young man. "I could have waited until
+to-morrow."
+
+"A matter of conscience, dear Don Orsino--nothing more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+Orsino was free at last. The whole matter was incomprehensible to him,
+and almost mysterious, so that after he had at last received his legal
+release he spent his time in trying to discover the motives of Del
+Ferice's conduct. The simplest explanation seemed to be that Ugo had not
+derived as much profit from the last contract as he had hoped for,
+though it had been enough to justify him in keeping his informal
+engagement with Contini and Company, and that he feared a new and
+unfavourable change in business which made any further speculations of
+the kind dangerous. For some time Orsino believed this to have been the
+case, but events proved that he was mistaken. He dissolved his
+partnership with Contini, but Andrea Contini and Company still continued
+to exist. The new partner was no less a personage than Del Ferice
+himself, who was constantly represented in the firm by the confidential
+clerk who has been more than once mentioned in this history, and who was
+a friend of Contini's. What terms Contini made for himself, Orsino never
+knew, but it is certain that the architect prospered from that time and
+is still prosperous.
+
+Late in the spring of that year 1890 Roman society was considerably
+surprised by the news of a most unexpected marriage. The engagement had
+been carefully kept a secret, the banns had been published in Palermo,
+the civil and religious ceremonies had taken place there, and the happy
+couple had already reached Paris before either of them thought of
+informing their friends and before any notice of the event appeared in
+the papers. Even then, society felt itself aggrieved by the laconic form
+in which the information was communicated.
+
+The statement, indeed, left nothing to be desired on the score of
+plainness or conciseness of style. Count Del Ferice had married Maria
+Consuelo d'Aranjuez d'Aragona.
+
+Two persons only received the intelligence a few days before it was
+generally made known. One was Orsino and the other was Spicca. The
+letters were characteristic and may be worth reproducing.
+
+
+     "MY FATHER" (Maria Consuelo wrote)--"I am married to Count Del
+     Ferice, with whom I think that you are acquainted. There is no
+     reason why I should enter into any explanation of my reasons for
+     taking this step. There are plenty which everybody can see. My
+     husband's present position and great wealth make him what the world
+     calls a good match, and my fortune places me above the suspicion of
+     having married him for his money. If his birth was not originally
+     of the highest, it was at least as good as mine, and society will
+     say that the marriage was appropriate in all its circumstances. You
+     are aware that I could not be married without informing my husband
+     and the municipal authorities of my parentage, by presenting copies
+     of the registers in Nice. Count Del Ferice was good enough to
+     overlook some little peculiarity in the relation between the dates
+     of my birth and your marriage. We will therefore say no more about
+     the matter. The object of this letter is to let you know that those
+     facts have been communicated to several persons, as a matter of
+     necessity. I do not expect you to congratulate me. I congratulate
+     myself, however, with all my heart. Within two years I have freed
+     myself from my worthy mother, I have placed myself beyond your
+     power to injure me, and I have escaped ruining a man I loved by
+     marrying him. I have laid the foundations of peace if not of
+     happiness.
+
+     "The Princess is very ill but hopes to reach Normandy before the
+     summer begins. My husband will be obliged to be often in Rome but
+     will come to me from time to time, as I cannot leave the Princess
+     at present. She is trying, however, to select among her
+     acquaintance another lady in waiting--the more willingly as she is
+     not pleased with my marriage. Is that a satisfaction to you? I
+     expect to spend the winter in Rome.
+
+     "MARIA CONSUELO DEL FERICE."
+
+This was the letter by which Maria Consuelo announced her marriage to
+the father whom she so sincerely hated. For cruelty of language and
+expression it was not to be compared with the one she had written to
+him after parting with Orsino. But had she known how the news she now
+conveyed would affect the old man who was to learn it, her heart might
+have softened a little towards him, even after all she had suffered.
+Very different were the lines Orsino received from her at the same time.
+
+
+     "My dear Friend--When you read this letter, which I write on the
+     eve of my marriage, but shall not send till some days have passed,
+     you must think of me as the wife of Ugo Del Ferice. To-night, I am
+     still Maria Consuelo. I have something to say to you, and you must
+     read it patiently, for I shall never say it again--and after all,
+     it will not be much. Is it right of me to say it? I do not know.
+     Until to-morrow I have still time to refuse to be married.
+     Therefore I am still a free agent, and entitled to think freely.
+     After to-morrow it will be different.
+
+     "I wish, dear, that I could tell you all the truth. Perhaps you
+     would not be ashamed of having loved the daughter of Lucrezia
+     Ferris. But I cannot tell you all. There are reasons why you had
+     better never know it. But I will tell you this, for I must say it
+     once. I love you very dearly. I loved you long ago, I loved you
+     when I left you in Rome, I have loved you ever since, and I am
+     afraid that I shall love you until I die.
+
+     "It is not foolish of me to write the words, though it may be
+     wrong. If I love you, it is because I know you. We shall meet
+     before long, and then meet, perhaps, hundreds of times, and more,
+     for I am to live in Rome. I know that you will be all you should
+     be, or I would not speak now as I never spoke before, at the moment
+     when I am raising an impassable barrier between us by my own free
+     will. If you ever loved me--and you did--you will respect that
+     barrier in deed and word, and even in thought. You will remember
+     only that I loved you with all my heart on the day before my
+     marriage. You will forget even to think that I may love you still
+     to-morrow, and think tenderly of you on the day after that.
+
+     "You are free now, dear, and can begin your real life. How do I
+     know it? Del Ferice has told me that he has released you--for we
+     sometimes speak of you. He has even shown me a copy of the legal
+     act of release, which he chanced to find among the papers he had
+     brought. An accident, perhaps. Or, perhaps he knows that I loved
+     you. I do not care--I had a right to, then.
+
+     "So you are quite free. I like to think that you have come out of
+     all your troubles quite unscathed, young, your name untarnished,
+     your hands clean. I am glad that you answered the letter I wrote to
+     you from Egypt and told me all, and wrote so often afterwards. I
+     could not do much beyond give you my sympathy, and I gave it
+     all--to the uttermost. You will not need any more of it. You are
+     free now, thank God!
+
+     "If you think of me, wish me peace, dear--I do not ask for anything
+     nearer to happiness than that. But I wish you many things, the
+     least of which should make you happy. Most of all, I wish that you
+     may some day love well and truly, and win the reality of which you
+     once thought you held the shadow. Can I say more than that? No
+     loving woman can.
+
+     "And so, good-bye--good-bye, love of all my life, good-bye dear,
+     dear Orsino--I think this is the hardest good-bye of all--when we
+     are to meet so soon. I cannot write any more. Once again, the
+     last--the very last time, for ever--I love you.
+
+     "MARIA CONSUELO."
+
+A strange sensation came over Orsino as he read this letter. He was not
+able at first to realise much beyond the fact that Maria Consuelo was
+actually married to Del Ferice--a match than which none imaginable could
+have been more unexpected. But he felt that there was more behind the
+facts than he was able to grasp, almost more than he dared to guess at.
+A mysterious horror filled his mind as he read and reread the lines.
+There was no doubting the sincerity of what she said. He doubted the
+survival of his own love much more. She could have no reason whatever
+for writing as she did, on the eve of her marriage, no reason beyond the
+irresistible desire to speak out all her heart once only and for the
+last time. Again and again he went over the passages which struck him as
+most strange. Then the truth flashed upon him. Maria Consuelo had sold
+herself to free him from his difficulties, to save him from the terrible
+alternatives of either wasting his life as Del Ferice's slave or of
+ruining his family.
+
+With a smothered exclamation, between an oath and a groan of pain,
+Orsino threw himself upon the divan and buried his face in his hands.
+It is kinder to leave him there for a time, alone.
+
+Poor Spicca broke down under this last blow. In vain old Santi got out
+the cordial from the press in the corner, and did his best to bring his
+master back to his natural self. In vain Spicca roused himself, forced
+himself to eat, went out, walked his hour, dragging his feet after him,
+and attempted to exchange a word with his friends at the club. He seemed
+to have got his death wound. His head sank lower on his breast, his long
+emaciated frame stooped more and more, the thin hands grew daily more
+colourless, and the deathly face daily more deathly pale. Days passed
+away, and weeks, and it was early June. He no longer tried to go out.
+Santi tried to prevail upon him to take a little air in a cab, on the
+Via Appia. It would be money well spent, he said, apologising for
+suggesting such extravagance. Spicca shook his head, and kept to his
+chair by the open window. Then, on a certain morning, he was worse and
+had not the strength to rise from his bed.
+
+On that very morning a telegram came. He looked at it as though hardly
+understanding what he should do, as Santi held it before him. Then he
+opened it. His fingers did not tremble even now. The iron nerve of the
+great swordsman survived still.
+
+"Ventnor--Rome. Count Spicca. The Princess is dead. I know the truth at
+last. God forgive me and bless you. I come to you at once.--Maria
+Consuelo."
+
+Spicca read the few words printed on the white strip that was pasted to
+the yellow paper. Then his hands sank to his sides and he closed his
+eyes. Santi thought it was the end, and burst into tears as he fell to
+his knees by the bed.
+
+Half an hour passed. Then Spicca raised his head, and made a gesture
+with his hand.
+
+"Do not be a fool, Santi, I am not dead yet," he said, with kindly
+impatience. "Get up and send for Don Orsino Saracinesca, if he is still
+in Rome."
+
+Santi left the room, drying his eyes and uttering incoherent
+exclamations of astonishment mingled with a singular cross fire of
+praise and prayer directed to the Saints and of imprecations upon
+himself for his own stupidity.
+
+Before noon Orsino appeared. He was gaunt and pale, and more like San
+Giacinto than ever. There was a settled hardness in his face which was
+never again to disappear permanently. But he was horror-struck by
+Spicca's appearance. He had no idea that a man already so cadaverous
+could still change as the old man had changed. Spicca seemed little more
+than a grey shadow barely resting upon the white bed. He put the
+telegram into Orsino's hands. The young man read it twice and his face
+expressed his astonishment. Spicca smiled faintly, as he watched him.
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Orsino. "Of what truth does she speak? She
+hated you, and now, all at once, she loves you. I do not understand."
+
+"How should you?" The old man spoke in a clear, thin voice, very unlike
+his own. "You could not understand. But before I die, I will tell you."
+
+"Do not talk of dying--"
+
+"No. It is not necessary. I realise it enough, and you need not realise
+it at all. I have not much to tell you, but a little truth will
+sometimes destroy many falsehoods. You remember the story about Lucrezia
+Ferris? Maria Consuelo wrote it to you."
+
+"Remember it! Could I forget it?"
+
+"You may as well. There is not a word of truth in it. Lucrezia Ferris is
+not her mother."
+
+"Not her mother!"
+
+"No. I only wonder how you could ever have believed that a Piedmontese
+nurse could be the mother of Maria Consuelo. Nor am I Maria Consuelo's
+father. Perhaps that will not surprise you so much. She does not
+resemble me, thank Heaven!"
+
+"What is she then? Who is she?" asked Orsino impatiently.
+
+"To tell you that I must tell you the story. When I was young--very long
+before you were born--I travelled much, and I was well received. I was
+rich and of good family. At a certain court in Europe--I was at one time
+in the diplomacy--I loved a lady whom I could not have married, even had
+she been free. Her station was far above mine. She was also considerably
+older than I, and she paid very little attention to me, I confess. But I
+loved her. She is just dead. She was that princess mentioned in this
+telegram. Do you understand? Do you hear me? My voice is weak."
+
+"Perfectly. Pray go on."
+
+"Maria Consuelo is her grandchild--the granddaughter of the only woman I
+ever loved. Understand that, too. It happened in this way. My Princess
+had but one daughter, the Princess Marie, a mere child when I first saw
+her--not more than fourteen years old. We were all in Nice, one winter
+thirty years ago--some four years after I had first met the Princess. I
+travelled in order to see her, and she was always kind to me, though she
+did not love me. Perhaps I was useful, too, before that. People were
+always afraid of me, because I could handle the foils. It was thirty
+years ago, and the Princess Marie was eighteen. Poor child!"
+
+Spicca paused a moment, and passed his transparent hand over his eyes.
+
+"I think I understand," said Orsino.
+
+"No you do not," answered Spicca, with unexpected sharpness. "You will
+not understand, until I have told you everything. The Princess Marie
+fell ill, or pretended to fall ill while we were at Nice. But she could
+not conceal the truth long--at least not from her mother. She had
+already taken into her confidence a little Piedmontese maid, scarcely
+older than herself--a certain Lucrezia Ferris--and she allowed no other
+woman to come near her. Then she told her mother the truth. She loved a
+man of her own rank and not much older--not yet of age, in fact.
+Unfortunately, as happens with such people, a marriage was
+diplomatically impossible. He was not of her nationality and the
+relations were strained. But she had married him nevertheless, secretly
+and, as it turned out, without any legal formalities. It is questionable
+whether the marriage, even then, could have been proved to be valid, for
+she was a Catholic and he was not, and a Catholic priest had married
+them without proper authorisation or dispensation. But they were both in
+earnest, both young and both foolish. The husband--his name is of no
+importance--was very far away at the time we were in Nice, and was quite
+unable to come to her. She was about to be a mother and she turned to
+her own mother in her extremity, with a full confession of the truth."
+
+"I see," said Orsino. "And you adopted--"
+
+"You do not see yet. The Princess came to me for advice. The situation
+was an extremely delicate one from all points of view. To declare the
+marriage at that moment might have produced extraordinary complications,
+for the countries to which, the two young people belonged were on the
+verge of a war which was only retarded by the extraordinary genius of
+one man. To conceal it seemed equally dangerous, if not more so. The
+Princess Marie's reputation was at stake--the reputation of a young
+girl, as people supposed her to be, remember that. Various schemes
+suggested themselves. I cannot tell what would have been done, for fate
+decided the matter--tragically, as fate does. The young husband was
+killed while on a shooting expedition--at least so it was stated. I
+always believed that he shot himself. It was all very mysterious. We
+could not keep the news from the Princess Marie. That night Maria
+Consuelo was born. On the next day, her mother died. The shock had
+killed her. The secret was now known to the old Princess, to me, to
+Lucrezia Ferris and to the French doctor--a man of great skill and
+discretion. Maria Consuelo was the nameless orphan child of an
+unacknowledged marriage--of a marriage which was certainly not legal,
+and which the Church must hesitate to ratify. Again we saw that the
+complications, diplomatic and of other kinds, which would arise if the
+truth were published, would be enormous. The Prince himself was not yet
+in Nice and was quite ignorant of the true cause of his daughter's
+sudden death. But he would arrive in forty-eight hours, and it was
+necessary to decide upon some course. We could rely upon the doctor and
+upon our two selves--the Princess and I. Lucrezia Ferris seemed to be a
+sensible, quiet girl, and she certainly proved to be discreet for a long
+time. The Princess was distracted with grief and beside herself with
+anxiety. Remember that I loved her--that explains what I did. I proposed
+the plan which was carried out and with which you are acquainted. I took
+the child, declared it to be mine, and married Lucrezia. The only legal
+documents in existence concerning Maria Consuelo prove her to be my
+daughter. The priest who had married the poor Princess Marie could never
+be found. Terrified, perhaps, at what he had done, he
+disappeared--probably as a monk in an Austrian monastery. I hunted him
+for years. Lucrezia Ferris was discreet for two reasons. She received a
+large sum of money, and a large allowance afterwards, and later on it
+appears that she further enriched herself at Maria Consuelo's expense.
+Avarice was her chief fault, and by it we held her. Secondly, however,
+she was well aware, and knows to-day, that no one would believe her
+story if she told the truth. The proofs are all positive and legal for
+Maria Consuelo's supposed parentage, and there is not a trace of
+evidence in favour of the truth. You know the story now. I am glad I
+have been able to tell it to you. I will rest now, for I am very tired.
+If I am alive to-morrow, come and see me--good-bye, in case you should
+not find me."
+
+Orsino pressed the wasted hand and went out silently, more affected than
+he owned by the dying man's words and looks. It was a painful story of
+well-meant mistakes, he thought, and it explained many things which he
+had not understood. Linking it with all he knew besides, he had the
+whole history of Spicca's mysterious, broken life, together with the
+explanation of some points in his own which had never been clear to him.
+The old cynic of a duellist had been a man of heart, after all, and had
+sacrificed his whole existence to keep a secret for a woman whom he
+loved but who did not care for him. That was all. She was dead and he
+was dying. The secret was already half buried in the past. If it were
+told now, no one would believe it.
+
+Orsino returned on the following day. He had sent for news several
+times, and was told that Spicca still lingered. He saw him again but the
+old man seemed very weak and only spoke a few words during the hour
+Orsino spent with him. The doctor had said that he might possibly live,
+but that there was not much hope.
+
+And again on the next day Orsino came back. He started as he entered the
+room. An old Franciscan, a Minorite, was by the bedside, speaking in low
+tones. Orsino made as though he would withdraw, but Spicca feebly
+beckoned to him to stay, and the monk rose.
+
+"Good-bye," whispered Spicca, following him with his sunken eyes.
+
+Orsino led the Franciscan out. At the outer door the latter turned to
+Orsino with a strange look and laid a hand upon his arm.
+
+"Who are you, my son?" he asked.
+
+"Orsino Saracinesca."
+
+"A friend of his?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He has done terrible things in his long life. But he has done noble
+things, too, and has suffered much, and in silence. He has earned his
+rest, and God will forgive him."
+
+The monk bowed his head and went out. Orsino re-entered the room and
+took the vacant chair beside the bed. He touched Spicca's hand almost
+affectionately, but the latter withdrew it with an effort. He had never
+liked sympathy, and liked it least when another would have needed it
+most. For a considerable time neither spoke. The pale hand lay
+peacefully upon the pillows, the long, shadowy frame was wrapped in a
+gown of dark woollen material.
+
+"Do you think she will come to-day?" asked the old man at length.
+
+"She may come to-day--I hope so," Orsino answered.
+
+A long pause followed.
+
+"I hope so, too," Spicca whispered. "I have not much strength left. I
+cannot wait much longer."
+
+Again there was silence. Orsino knew that there was nothing to be said,
+nothing at least which he could say, to cheer the last hours of the
+lonely life. But Spicca seemed contented that he should sit there.
+
+"Give me that photograph," he said, suddenly, a quarter of an hour
+later.
+
+Orsino looked about him but could not see what Spicca wanted.
+
+"Hers," said the feeble voice, "in the next room."
+
+It was the photograph in the little chiselled frame--the same frame
+which had once excited Donna Tullia's scorn. Orsino brought it quickly
+from its place over the chimney-piece, and held it before his friend's
+eyes. Spicca gazed at it a long time in silence.
+
+"Take it away," he said, at last. "It is not like her."
+
+Orsino put it aside and sat down again. Presently Spicca turned a little
+on the pillow and looked at him.
+
+"Do you remember that I once said I wished you might marry her?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was quite true. You understand now? I could not tell you then."
+
+"Yes. I understand everything now."
+
+"But I am sorry I said it."
+
+"Why?" "Perhaps it influenced you and has hurt your life. I am sorry.
+You must forgive me."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, do not distress yourself about such trifles," said
+Orsino, earnestly. "There is nothing to forgive."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Orsino looked at him, pondering on the peaceful ending of the strange
+life, and wondering what manner of heart and soul the man had really
+lived with. With the intuition which sometimes comes to dying persons,
+Spicca understood, though it was long before he spoke again. There was a
+faint touch of his old manner in his words.
+
+"I am an awful example, Orsino," he said, with the ghost of a smile. "Do
+not imitate me. Do not sacrifice your life for the love of any woman.
+Try and appreciate sacrifices in others."
+
+The smile died away again.
+
+"And yet I am glad I did it," he added, a moment later. "Perhaps it was
+all a mistake--but I did my best."
+
+"You did indeed," Orsino answered gravely.
+
+He meant what he said, though he felt that it had indeed been all a
+mistake, as Spicca suggested. The young face was very thoughtful. Spicca
+little knew how hard his last cynicism hit the man beside him, for whose
+freedom and safety the woman of whom Spicca was thinking had sacrificed
+so very much. He would die without knowing that.
+
+The door opened softly and a woman's light footstep was on the
+threshold. Maria Consuelo came silently and swiftly forward with
+outstretched hands that had clasped the dying man's almost before Orsino
+realised that it was she herself. She fell on her knees beside the bed
+and pressed the powerless cold fingers to her forehead.
+
+Spicca started and for one moment raised his head from the pillow. It
+fell back almost instantly. A look of supreme happiness flashed over
+the deathly features, followed by an expression of pain.
+
+"Why did you marry him?" he asked in tones so loud that Orsino started,
+and Maria Consuelo looked up with streaming eyes.
+
+She did not answer, but tried to soothe him, rising and caressing his
+hand, and smoothing his pillows.
+
+"Tell me why you married him!" he cried again. "I am dying--I must
+know!"
+
+She bent down very low and whispered into his ear. He shook his head
+impatiently.
+
+"Louder! I cannot hear! Louder!"
+
+Again she whispered, more distinctly this time, and casting an imploring
+glance at Orsino, who was too much disturbed to understand.
+
+"Louder!" gasped the dying man, struggling to sit up. "Louder! O my God!
+I shall die without hearing you--without knowing--"
+
+It would have been inhuman to torture the departing soul any longer.
+Then Maria Consuelo made her last sacrifice. She spoke in calm, clear
+tones.
+
+"I married to save the man I loved."
+
+Spicca's expression changed. For fully twenty seconds his sunken eyes
+remained fixed, gazing into hers. Then the light began to flash in them
+for the last time, keen as the lightning.
+
+"God have mercy on you! God reward you!" he cried.
+
+The shadowy figure quivered throughout its length, was still, then
+quivered again, then sprang up suddenly with a leap, and Spicca was
+standing on the floor, clasping Maria Consuelo in his arms. All at once
+there was colour in his face and the fire grew bright in his glance.
+
+"Oh, my darling, I have loved you so!" he cried.
+
+He almost lifted her from the ground as he pressed his lips passionately
+upon her forehead. His long thin hands relaxed suddenly, and the light
+broke in his eyes as when a mirror is shivered by a blow. For an instant
+that seemed an age, he stood upright, dead already, and then fell back
+all his length across the bed with wide extended arms.
+
+There was a short, sharp sob, and then a sound of passionate weeping
+filled the silent room. Strongly and tenderly Orsino laid his dead
+friend upon the couch as he had lain alive but two minutes earlier. He
+crossed the hands upon the breast and gently closed the staring eyes. He
+could not have had Maria Consuelo see him as he had fallen, when she
+next looked up.
+
+A little later they stood side by side, gazing at the calm dead face, in
+a long silence. How long they stood, they never knew, for their hearts
+were very full. The sun was going down and the evening light filled the
+room.
+
+"Did he tell you, before he died--about me?" asked Maria Consuelo in a
+low voice.
+
+"Yes. He told me everything."
+
+Maria Consuelo went forward and bent over the face and kissed the white
+forehead, and made the sign of the Cross upon it. Then she turned and
+took Orsino's hand in hers.
+
+"I could not help your hearing what I said, Orsino. He was dying, you
+see. You know all, now."
+
+Orsino's fingers pressed hers desperately. For a moment he could not
+speak. Then the agonised words came with a great effort, harshly but
+ringing from the heart.
+
+"And I can give you nothing!"
+
+He covered his face and turned away.
+
+"Give me your friendship, dear--I never had your love," she said.
+
+It was long before they talked together again.
+
+This is what I know of young Orsino Saracinesca's life up to the present
+time. Maria Consuelo, Countess Del Ferice, was right. She never had his
+love as he had hers. Perhaps the power of loving so is not in him. He
+is, after all, more like San Giacinto than any other member of the
+family, cold, perhaps, and hard by nature. But these things which I have
+described have made a man of him at an age when many men are but boys,
+and he has learnt what many never learn at all--that there is more true
+devotion to be found in the world than most people will acknowledge. He
+may some day be heard of. He may some day fall under the great passion.
+Or he may never love at all and may never distinguish himself any more
+than his father has done. One or the other may happen, but not both, in
+all probability. The very greatest passion is rarely compatible with the
+very greatest success except in extraordinary good or bad natures. And
+Orsino Saracinesca is not extraordinary in any way. His character has
+been formed by the unusual circumstances in which he was placed when
+very young, rather than by anything like the self-development which we
+hear of in the lives of great men. From a somewhat foolish and
+affectedly cynical youth he has grown into a decidedly hard and
+cool-headed man. He is very much seen in society but talks little on the
+whole. If, hereafter, there should be anything in his life worth
+recording, another hand than mine may write it down for future readers.
+
+If any one cares to ask why I have thought it worth the trouble to
+describe his early years so minutely, I answer that the young man of the
+Transition Period interests me. Perhaps I am singular in that. Orsino
+Saracinesca is a fair type, I think, of his class at his age. I have
+done my best to be just to him.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Don Orsino, by F. Marion Crawford
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