oney keep it in government bonds until you have a chance of buying
something worth keeping."

Orsino went away disappointed and annoyed. San Giacinto's talk about
farming seemed very dull to him. To bury himself for half a dozen years
in the country in order to learn the rotation of crops and the
principles of land draining did not present itself as an attractive
career. If San Giacinto thought farming the great profession of the
future, why did he not try it himself? Orsino dismissed the idea rather
indignantly, and his determination to try his luck became stronger by
the opposition it met. Moreover he had expected very different language
from San Giacinto, whose sober view jarred on Orsino's enthusiastic
impulse.

But he now found himself in considerable difficulty. He was ignorant
even of the first steps to be taken, and knew no one to whom he could
apply for information. There was Prince Montevarchi indeed, who though
he was San Giacinto's brother-in-law, seemed by the latter's account to
have got into trouble. He did not understand how San Giacinto could
allow his wife's brother to ruin himself without lending him a helping
hand, but San Giacinto was not the kind of man of whom people ask
indiscreet questions, and Orsino had heard that the two men were not on
the best of terms. Possibly good advice had been offered and refused.
Such affairs generally end in a breach of friendship. However that might
be, Orsino would not go to Montevarchi.

He wandered aimlessly about the streets, and the money seemed to burn in
his pocket, though he had carefully deposited it in a place of safety at
home. Again and again Del Ferice's story of the carpenter and his two
companions recurred to his mind. He wondered how they had set about
beginning, and he wished he could ask Del Ferice himself. He could not
go to the man's house, but he might possibly meet him at Maria
Consuelo's. He was surprised to find that he had almost forgotten her in
his anxiety to become a man of business. It was too early to call yet,
and in order to kill the time he went home, got a horse from the stables
and rode out into the country for a couple of hours.

At half-past five o'clock he entered the familiar little sitting-room in
the hotel. Madame d'Aranjuez was alone, cutting a new book with the
jewelled knife which continued to be the only object of the kind visible
in the room. She smiled as Orsino entered, and she laid aside the volume
as he sat down