say that. But such help is beyond your power, Don Orsino,"
she added turning towards him rather suddenly. "Let us not talk of this
any more. Believe me, nothing can be done. You have sometimes acted
strangely with me, but I really think you would help me if you could.
Let that be the state of our acquaintance. You are willing, and I
believe that you are. Nothing more. Let that be our compact. But you can
perhaps help me in another way--a smaller way. I want a habitation of
some kind for the winter, for I am tired of camping out in hotels. You
who know your own city so well can name some person who will undertake
the matter."

"I know the very man," said Orsino promptly.

"Will you write out the address for me?"

"It is not necessary. I mean myself."

"I could not let you take so much trouble," protested Maria Consuelo.

But she accepted, nevertheless, after a little hesitation. For some time
they discussed the relative advantages of the various habitable quarters
of the city, both glad, perhaps, to find an almost indifferent subject
of conversation, and both relatively happy merely in being together. The
talk made one of those restful interludes which are so necessary, and
often so hard to produce, between two people whose thoughts run upon a
strong common interest, and who find it difficult to exchange half a
dozen words without being led back to the absorbing topic.

What had been said had produced a decided effect upon Orsino. He had
come expecting to take up the acquaintance on a new footing, but ten
minutes had not elapsed before he had found himself as much interested
as ever in Maria Consuelo's personality, and far more interested in her
life than he had ever been before. While talking with more or less
indifference about the chances of securing a suitable apartment for the
winter, Orsino listened with an odd sensation of pleasure to every tone
of his companion's voice and watched every changing expression of the
striking face. He wondered whether he were not perhaps destined to love
her sincerely as he had already loved her in a boyish, capricious
fashion which would no longer be natural to him now. But for the present
he was sure that he did not love her, and that he desired nothing but
her sympathy for himself, and to feel sympathy for her. Those were the
words he used, and he did not explain them to his own intelligence in
any very definite way. He was conscious, indeed, that they meant more
than former