y realised that his father
had the faculty and apparently the intention of freezing any originality
he chanced to show, and he inwardly resented the coldness, quietly, if
foolishly, resolving to astonish those who misunderstood him by seizing
the first opportunity of doing something out of the common way. For some
time he stood in silence watching the people who came by and glancing
from time to time at the dense crowd outside the barrier. He was
suddenly aware that his father was observing intently a lady who
advanced along the open, way.

"There is Tullia Del Ferice!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario in surprise.

"I do not know her, except by sight," observed Orsino indifferently.

The countess was very imposing in her black veil and draperies. Her red
face seemed to lose its colour in the dim church and she affected a slow
and stately manner more becoming to her weight than was her natural
restless vivacity. She had got what she desired and she swept proudly
along to take her old place among the ladies of Rome. No one knew whose
card she had delivered up at the entrance to the sacristy, and she
enjoyed the triumph of showing that the wife of the revolutionary, the
banker, the member of parliament, had not lost caste after all.

She looked Giovanni full in the face with her disagreeable blue eyes as
she came up, apparently not meaning to recognise him. Then, just as she
passed him, she deigned to make a very slight inclination of the head,
just enough to compel Sant' Ilario to return the salutation. It was very
well done. Orsino did not know all the details of the past events, but
he knew that his father had once wounded Del Ferice in a duel and he
looked at Del Fence's wife with some curiosity. He had seldom had an
opportunity of being so near to her.

"It was certainly not about her that they fought," he reflected. "It
must have been about some other woman, if there was a woman in the
question at all."

A moment later he was aware that a pair of tawny eyes was fixed on him.
Maria Consuelo was following Donna Tullia at a distance of a dozen
yards. Orsino came forward and his new acquaintance held out her hand.
They had not met since they had first seen each other.

"It was so kind of you," she said.

"What, Madame?"

"To suggest this to Gouache. I should have had no ticket--where shall I
sit?"

Orsino did not understand, for though he had mentioned the subject,
Gouache had not told him what he meant to do. But the