“If you fail,” answered the other, “all Rome will say that I have intentionally brought about your failure.  You know how people talk.  Thousands will become millions and I shall be accused of having plotted the destruction of your family, because your father once wounded me in a duel, nearly five and twenty years ago.”

“How absurd!”

“No, no.  It is not absurd.  I am afraid I have the reputation of being vindictive.  Well, well—­it is in bad taste to talk of oneself.  I am good at hating, perhaps, but I have always felt that I preferred peace to war, and now I am growing old.  I am not what I once was, Don Orsino, and I do not like quarrelling.  But I would not allow people to say impertinent things about me, and if you failed and lost money, I should be abused by your friends, and perhaps censured by my own.  Do you see?  Yes, I am selfish.  I admit it.  You must forgive that weakness in me.  I like peace.”

“It is very natural,” said Orsino, “and I have no right to put you in danger of the slightest inconvenience.  But, after all, why need I appear before the public?”

Del Ferice smiled in the dark.

“True,” he answered.  “You could establish an anonymous firm, so to say, and the documents would be a secret between you and me and the notary.  Of course there are many ways of managing such an affair quietly.”

He did not add that the secret could only be kept so long as Orsino was successful.  It seemed a pity to damp so much good enthusiasm.

“We will do that, then, if you will show me how.  My ambition is not to see my name on a door-plate, but to be really occupied.”

“I understand, I understand,” said Del Ferice thoughtfully.  “I must ask you to give me until to-morrow to consider the matter.  It needs a little thought.”

“Where can I find you, to hear your decision?”

Del Ferice was silent for a moment.

“I think I once met you late in the afternoon at Madame d’Aranjuez’s.  We might manage to meet there to-morrow and come away together.  Shall we name an hour?  Would it suit you?”

“Perfectly,” answered Orsino with alacrity.

The idea of meeting Maria Consuelo alone was very disturbing in his present state of mind.  He felt that he had lost his balance in his relations with her, and that in order to regain it he must see her in the presence of a third person, if only for a quarter of an hour.  It would be easier, then, to resume the former intercourse and to say whatever he should determine upon saying.  If she were offended, she would at least not show it in any marked way before Del Ferice.  Orsino’s existence, he thought, was becoming complicated for the first time, and though he enjoyed the vague sensation of impending difficulty, he wanted as many opportunities as possible of reviewing the situation and of meditating upon each new move.