“I have a little proposition to make,” said the fat count, turning again to Maria Consuelo.  “My wife and I are alone this evening.  Will you not come and dine with us, Madame?  And you, Don Orsino, will you not come too?  We shall just make a party of four, if you will both come.”

“I shall be enchanted!” exclaimed Maria Consuelo without hesitation.

“I shall be delighted!” answered Orsino with an alacrity which surprised himself.

“At eight then,” said Del Ferice, shaking hands with him again, and in a moment he was gone.

Orsino was too much confused, and too much delighted at having escaped so easily from his difficulty to realise the importance of the step he was taking in going to Del Fence’s house, or to ask himself why the latter had so opportunely extended the invitation.  He sat down in his place with a sigh of relief.

“You have compromised yourself for ever,” said Maria Consuelo with a scornful laugh.  “You, the blackest of the Black, are to be numbered henceforth with the acquaintances of Count Del Ferice and Donna Tullia.”

“What difference does it make?  Besides, I could not have done otherwise.”

“You might have refused the dinner.”

“I could not possibly have done that.  To accept was the only way out of a great difficulty.”

“What difficulty?” asked Maria Consuelo relentlessly.

Orsino was silent, wondering how he could explain, as explain he must, without offending her.

“You should not do such things,” she said suddenly.  “I will not always forgive you.”

A gleam of light which, indeed, promised little forgiveness, flashed in her eyes.

“What things?” asked Orsino.

“Do not pretend that you think me so simple,” she said, in a tone of irritation.  “You and Del Ferice come here almost at the same moment.  When he goes, you show the utmost anxiety to go too.  Of course you have agreed to meet here.  It is evident.  You might have chosen the steps of the hotel for your place of meeting instead of my sitting-room.”

The colour rose slowly in her cheeks.  She was handsome when she was angry.

“If I had imagined that you could be displeased—­”

“Is it so surprising?  Have you forgotten what happened yesterday?  You should be on your knees, asking my forgiveness for that—­and instead, you make a convenience of your visit to-day in order to meet a man of business.  You have very strange ideas of what is due to a woman.”

“Del Fence suggested it,” said Orsino, “and I accepted the suggestion.”

“What is Del Ferice to me, that I should be made the victim of his suggestions, as you call them?  Besides, he does not know anything of your folly of yesterday, and he has no right to suspect it.”

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”

“And yet you ought to tell me, if you expect that I will forget all this.  You cannot?  Then be so good as to do the only other sensible thing in your power, and leave me as soon as possible.”