“Not to-day.  Your first attempt might lead you into extremes.”

“There is not the slightest fear of that, Madame,” he answered with some emphasis.

She coloured a little and her closed lips smiled in a way he had often noticed before.  He congratulated himself upon these signs of approaching ill-temper, which promised an escape from his difficulty.  To take leave of her suddenly was to abandon the field, and that he would not do.  She had determined to force him into a confession of devotion, and he was equally determined not to satisfy her.  He had tried to lead her off her track with frivolous talk and had failed.  He would try and irritate her instead, but without incurring the charge of rudeness.  Why she was making such an attack upon him, was beyond his understanding, but he resented it, and made up his mind neither to fly nor yield.  If he had been a hundredth part as cynical as he liked to fancy himself, he would have acted very differently.  But he was young enough to have been wounded by his former dismissal, though he hardly knew it, and to seek almost instinctively to revenge his wrongs.  He did not find it easy.  He would not have believed that such a woman as Maria Consuelo could so far forget her pride as to go begging for a declaration of love.

“I suppose you will take Gouache’s portrait away with you,” he observed, changing the subject with a directness which he fancied would increase her annoyance.

“What makes you think so?” she asked, rather drily.

“I thought it a natural question.”

“I cannot imagine what I should do with it.  I shall leave it with him.”

“You will let him send it to the Salon in Paris, of course?”

“If he likes.  You seem interested in the fate of the picture.”

“A little.  I wondered why you did not have it here, as it has been finished so long.”

“Instead of that hideous mirror, you mean?  There would be less variety.  I should always see myself in the same dress.”

“No—­on the opposite wall.  You might compare truth with fiction in that way.”

“To the advantage of Gouache’s fiction, you would say.  You were more complimentary a little while ago.”

“You imagine more rudeness than even I am capable of inventing.”

“That is saying much.  Why did you change the subject just now?”

“Because I saw that you were annoyed at something.  Besides, we were talking about myself, if I remember rightly.”

“Have you never heard that a man should always talk to a woman about himself or herself?”

“No.  I never heard that.  Shall we talk of you, then, Madame?”

“Do you care to talk of me?” asked Maria Consuelo.

Another direct attack, Orsino thought.

“I would rather hear you talk of yourself,” he answered without the least hesitation.

“If I were to tell you my thoughts about myself at the present moment, they would surprise you very much.”