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."