In July Orsino’s people made ready to go up to Saracinesca.  The old prince, to every one’s surprise, declared his intention of going to England, and roughly refused to be accompanied by any one of the family.  He wanted to find out some old friends, he said, and desired the satisfaction of spending a couple of months in peace, which was quite impossible at home, owing to Giovanni’s outrageous temper and Orsino’s craze for business.  He thereupon embraced them all affectionately, indulged in a hearty laugh and departed in a special carriage with his own servants.

Giovanni objected to Orsino’s staying in Rome during the great heat.  Though Orsino had not as yet entered into any explanation with his father, but the latter understood well enough that the business had turned out better than had been expected and began to feel an interest in its further success, for his son’s sake.  He saw the boy developing into a man by a process which he would naturally have supposed to be the worst possible one, judging from his own point of view.  But he could not find fault with the result.  There was no disputing the mental superiority of the Orsino of July over the Orsino of the preceding January.  Whatever the sensation which Giovanni experienced as he contemplated the growing change, it was not one of anxiety nor of disappointment.  But he had a Roman’s well-founded prejudice against spending August and September in town.  His objections gave rise to some discussion, in which Corona joined.

Orsino enlarged upon the necessity of attending in person to the execution of his contracts.  Giovanni suggested that he should find some trustworthy person to take his place.  Corona was in favour of a compromise.  It would be easy, she said, for Orsino to spend two or three days of every week in Rome and the remainder in the country with his father and mother.  They were all three quite right according to their own views, and they all three knew it.  Moreover they were all three very obstinate people.  The consequence was that Orsino, who was in possession, so to say, since the other two were trying to make him change his mind, got the best of the argument, and won his first pitched battle.  Not that there was any apparent hostility, or that any of the three spoke hotly or loudly.  They were none of them like old Saracinesca, whose feats of argumentation were vehement, eccentric and fiery as his own nature.  They talked with apparent calm through a long summer’s afternoon, and the vanquished retired with a fairly good grace, leaving Orsino master of the field.  But on that occasion Giovanni Saracinesca first formed the opinion that his son was a match for him, and that it would be wise in future to ascertain the chances of success before incurring the risk of a humiliating defeat.

Giovanni and his wife went out together and talked over the matter as their carriage swept round the great avenues of Villa Borghesa.

“There is no question of the fact that Orsino is growing up—­is grown up already,” said Sant’ Ilario, glancing at Corona’s calm, dark face.