the aged prince, or a cutting answer from Sant’ Ilario for the questionable satisfaction of telling either that Orsino was going to the bad.  The only person who really knew what Orsino was about, and who could have claimed the right to speak to his family of his doings was San Giacinto, and he held his peace, having plenty of important affairs of his own to occupy him and being blessed with an especial gift for leaving other people to themselves.

Sant’ Ilario never spied upon his son, as many of his contemporaries would have done in his place.  He preferred to trust him to his own devices so long as these led to no great mischief.  He saw that Orsino was less restless than formerly, that he was less at the club, and that he was stirring earlier in the morning than had been his wont, and he was well satisfied.

It was not to be expected, however, that Orsino should take Maria Consuelo literally at her word, and cease from visiting her all at once.  If not really in love with her, he was at least so much interested in her that he sorely missed the daily half hour or more which he had been used to spend in her society.

Three several times he went to her hotel at the accustomed hour, and each time he was told by the porter that she was at home; but on each occasion, also, when he sent up his card, the hotel servant returned with a message from the maid to the effect that Madame d’Aranjuez was tired and did not receive.  Orsino’s pride rebelled equally against making a further attempt and against writing a letter requesting an explanation.  Once only, when he was walking alone she passed him in a carriage, and she acknowledged his bow quietly and naturally, as though nothing had happened.  He fancied she was paler than usual, and that there were shadows under her eyes which he had not formerly noticed.  Possibly, he thought, she was really not in good health, and the excuses made through her maid were not wholly invented.  He was conscious that his heart beat a little faster as he watched the back of the brougham disappearing in the distance, but he did not feel an irresistible longing to make another and more serious attempt to see her.  He tried to analyse his own sensations, and it seemed to him that he rather dreaded a meeting than desired it, and that he felt a certain humiliation for which he could not account.  In the midst of his analysis, his cigarette went out and he sighed.  He was startled by such an expression of feeling, and tried to remember whether he had ever sighed before in his life, but if he had, he could not recall the circumstances.  He tried to console himself with the absurd supposition that he was sleepy and that the long-drawn breath had been only a suppressed yawn.  Then he walked on, gazing before him into the purple haze that filled the deep street just as the sun was setting, and a vague sadness and longing touched him which had no place in his catalogue of permissible emotions and which were as far removed from the cold cynicism which he admired in others and affected in himself as they were beyond the sphere of his analysis.