She smiled with a certain pride, as she heard the words.

“Yes,” she answered, “he is a man.  It is a mistake to treat him as a boy any longer.”

“Do you think it is this sudden interest in business that has changed him so?”

“Of course—­what else?”

“Madame d’Aranjuez, for instance,” Giovanni suggested.

“I do not believe she ever had the least influence over him.  The flirtation seems to have died a natural death.  I confess, I hoped it might end in that way, and I am glad if it has.  And I am very glad that Orsino is succeeding so well.  Do you know, dear?  I am glad, because you did not believe it possible that he should.”

“No, I did not.  And now that I begin to understand it, he does not like to talk to me about his affairs.  I suppose that is only natural.  Tell me—­has he really made money?  Or have you been giving him money to lose, in order that he may buy experience.”

“He has succeeded alone,” said Corona proudly.  “I would give him whatever he needed, but he needs nothing.  He is immensely clever and immensely energetic.  How could he fail?”

“You seem to admire our firstborn, my dear,” observed Giovanni with a smile.

“To tell the truth, I do.  I have no doubt that he does all sorts of things which he ought not to do, and of which I know nothing.  You did the same at his age, and I shall be quite satisfied if he turns out like you.  I would not like to have a lady-like son with white hands and delicate sensibilities, and hypocritical affectations of exaggerated morality.  I think I should be capable of trying to make such a boy bad, if it only made him manly—­though I daresay that would be very wrong.”

“No doubt,” said Giovanni.  “But we shall not be placed in any such position by Orsino, my dear.  You remember that little affair last year, in England?  It was very nearly a scandal.  But then—­the English are easily led into temptation and very easily scandalised afterwards.  Orsino will not err in the direction of hypocritical morality.  But that is not the question.  I wish to know, from you since he does not confide in me, how far he is really succeeding.”

Corona gave her husband a remarkably clear statement of Orsino’s affairs, without exaggeration so far as the facts were concerned, but not without highly favourable comment.  She did not attempt to conceal her triumph, now that success had been in a measure attained, and she did not hesitate to tell Giovanni that he ought to have encouraged and supported the boy from the first.

Giovanni listened with very great interest, and bore her affectionate reproaches with equanimity.  He felt in his heart that he had done right, and he somehow still believed that things were not in reality all that they seemed to be.  There was something in Orsino’s immediate success against odds apparently heavy, which disturbed his judgment.  He had not, it was true, any personal experience of the building