Don Orsino

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.

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, yet it 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,”remarked 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 dare say. 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, so 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 better 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 has entered into any such speculation.”

“ It is a pity,” remarked Del Ferice thoughtfully.

“ Why a pity ? ”

“ On the one hand, my instincts are basely commercial,” answered Del Ferice, 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,” replied 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. Goodevening, 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 seen only a willful 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 pretense 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 wall 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 dare say. After all, why should you risk anything ? I suppose it is simpler to play cards, though I should fancy 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 dishonorable 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 dishonorable 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 papercutter. 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 moved the shade of the lamp a few inches.

“ I would rather not be responsible for your choice,” she observed 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 practice 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 color 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 coloring and in the grace of the attitude. Her face was serious at first. Gradually a smile stole over it, beginning, as it seemed, with 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 — traveling, 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 insure 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 analyzers 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 rarely seem to be 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 analyze 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 rumor 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 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.”

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 many 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, on arriving, addressed to him a few congratulatory and moral sentiments, clothed in rounded periods and twanging of Cicero in his most sermonizing 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 humor, 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 archæology 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 by very mellow claret. 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 continued 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 quarreling 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-fornothing 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 today. ” he said, “and we are all quarreling in honor 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 gray head shook a little, his rugged features twitched, and then a broad, good-humored 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 quarreled 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 color 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 honor 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 dullness 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 Acquaviva, 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.”

So 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 to which she was asked. But as yet she saw only the Whites, and had not made the acquaintance of a single Gray family, in spite of his entreaties. He could not tell whether she had any fixed reason in making her choice, or whether 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 was 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 civilization 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 laborer; 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 drawn principally 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 labor 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 favorites 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 favorable 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 ordinary society men or women. On the contrary, most of them exhibit the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anæmia. 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 pocket. 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 gayly 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 poeket, 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 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 honorable 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 persons 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.”

Orsino 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 to her, he was at liberty to do so.

F. Marion Crawford.