“I had no idea that you were so modern, dearest mother,” laughed Orsino.  He felt suddenly very happy and in the best of humours with himself.

“Modern—­no, I do not think that either your father or I could ever be that.  If you had lived our lives you would see how impossible it is.  The most I can hope to do is to understand you and your brothers as you grow up to be men.  But I hate interference and I hate curiosity—­the one breeds opposition and the other dishonesty—­and if the other boys turn out to be as reticent as you, Orsino, I shall not always know when they want me.  You do not realise how much you have been away from me since you were a boy, nor how silent you have grown when you are at home.”

“Am I, mother?  I never meant to be.”

“I know it, dear, and I do not want you to be always confiding in me.  It is not a good thing for a young man.  You are strong and the more you rely upon yourself, the stronger you will grow.  But when you want sympathy, if you ever do, remember that I have my whole heart full of it for you.  For that, at least, come to me.  No one can give you what I can give you, dear son.”

Orsino was touched and pressed her hand, kissing it more than once.  He did not know whether in her last words she had meant any allusion to Maria Consuelo, or whether, indeed, she had been aware of his intimacy with the latter.  But he did not ask the question of her nor of himself.  For the moment he felt that a want in his nature had been satisfied, and he wondered again why he had never thought of confiding in his mother.

They talked of his plans until it was late, and from that time they were more often together than before, each growing daily more proud of the other, though perhaps Orsino had better reasons for his pride than Corona could have found, for the love of mother for son is more comprehensive and not less blind than the passion of woman for man.

CHAPTER XIV.

The short Roman season was advancing rapidly to its premature fall, which is on Ash Wednesday, after which it struggles to hold up its head against the overwhelming odds of a severely observed Lent, to revive only spasmodically after Easter and to die a natural death on the first warm day.  In that year, too, the fatal day fell on the fifteenth of February, and progressive spirits talked of the possibility of fixing the movable Feasts and Fasts of the Church in a more convenient part of the calendar.  Easter might be made to fall in June, for instance, and society need not be informed of its inevitable and impending return to dust and ashes until it had enjoyed a good three months, or even four, of what an eminent American defines as “brass, sass, lies and sin.”