“How satisfactory!” exclaimed Maria Consuelo, with a little scorn.

“It is the only way to read novels,” answered Orsino, “for it leaves them always new to you, and the same one may be made to last several weeks.”

“I have heard it said that one should fear the man of one book,” observed Maria Consuelo, looking at him.

“For my part, I am more inclined to fear the woman of many.”

“Do you read much, my dear Consuelo?” asked Donna Tullia, laughing.

“Perpetually.”

“And is Don Orsino afraid of you?”

“Mortally,” answered Orsino.  “Madame d’Aranjuez knows everything.”

“Is she blue, then?” asked Donna Tullia.

“What shall I say, Madame?” inquired Orsino, turning to Maria Consuelo.  “Is it a compliment to compare you to the sky of Italy?”

“For blueness?”

“No—­for brightness and serenity.”

“Thanks.  That is pretty.  I accept.”

“And have you nothing for me?” asked Donna Tullia, with an engaging smile.

The other two looked at Orsino, wondering what he would say in answer to such a point-blank demand for flattery.

“Juno is still Minerva’s ally,” he said, falling back upon mythology, though it struck him that Del Ferice would make a poor Jupiter, with his fat white face and dull eyes.

“Very good!” laughed Donna Tullia.  “A little classic, but I pressed you hard.  You are not easily caught.  Talking of clever men,” she added with another meaning glance at Orsino, “I met your friend to-day, Consuelo.”

“My friend?  Who is he?”

“Spicca, of course.  Whom did you think I meant?  We always laugh at her,” she said, turning to Orsino, “because she hates him so.  She does not know him, and has never spoken to him.  It is his cadaverous face that frightens her.  One can understand that—­we of old Rome, have been used to him since the deluge.  But a stranger is horrified at the first sight of him.  Consuelo positively dreads to meet him in the street.  She says that he makes her dream of all sorts of horrors.”

“It is quite true,” said Maria Consuelo, with a slight movement of her beautiful shoulders.  “There are people one would rather not see, merely because they are not good to look at.  He is one of them and if I see him coming I turn away.”

“I know, I told him so to-day,” continued Donna Tullia cheerfully.  “We are old friends, but we do not often meet nowadays.  Just fancy!  It was in that little antiquary’s shop in the Monte Brianzo—­the first on the left as you go, he has good things—­and I saw a bit of embroidery in the window that took my fancy, so I stopped the carriage and went in.  Who should be there but Spicca, hat and all, looking like old Father Time.  He was bargaining for something—­a wretched old bit of brass—­bargaining, my dear!  For a few sous!  One may be poor, but one has no right to be mean—­I thought he would have got the miserable antiquary’s skin.”