“Only one person, at first.  I think you know her—­Madame d’Aranjuez.  I used to see her often just at that time.”

“Madame d’Aranjuez?” Spicca looked up sharply, pausing with his glass in his hand.

“You know her?”

“Very well indeed,” answered the old man, before he drank.  “Tell me, Orsino,” he continued, when he had finished the draught, “are you in love with that lady?”

Orsino was surprised by the directness of the question, but he did not show it.

“Not in the least,” he answered, coolly.

“Then why did you act as though you were?” asked Spicca looking him through and through.

“Do you mean to say that you were watching me all winter?” inquired Orsino, bending his black eyebrows rather angrily.

“Circumstances made it inevitable that I should know of your visits.  There was a time when you saw her every day.”

“I do not know what the circumstances, as you call them, were,” answered Orsino.  “But I do not like to be watched—­even by my father’s old friends.”

“Keep your temper, Orsino,” said Spicca quietly.  “Quarrelling is always ridiculous unless somebody is killed, and then it is inconvenient.  If you understood the nature of my acquaintance with Maria Consuelo—­with Madame d’Aranjuez, you would see that while not meaning to spy upon you in the least, I could not be ignorant of your movements.”

“Your acquaintance must be a very close one,” observed Orsino, far from pacified.

“So close that it has justified me in doing very odd things on her account.  You will not accuse me of taking a needless and officious interest in the affairs of others, I think.  My own are quite enough for me.  It chances that they are intimately connected with the doings of Madame d’Aranjuez, and have been so for a number of years.  The fact that I do not desire the connexion to be known does not make it easier for me to act, when I am obliged to act at all.  I did not ask an idle question when I asked you if you loved her.”

“I confess that I do not at all understand the situation,” said Orsino.

“No.  It is not easy to understand, unless I give you the key to it.  And yet you know more already than any one in Rome.  I shall be obliged if you will not repeat what you know.”

“You may trust me,” answered Orsino, who saw from Spicca’s manner that the matter was very serious.

“Thank you.  I see that you are cured of the idea that I have been frivolously spying upon you for my own amusement.”

Orsino was silent.  He thought of what had happened after he had taken leave of Maria Consuelo.  The mysterious maid who called herself Maria Consuelo’s nurse, or keeper, had perhaps spoken the truth.  It was possible that Spicca was one of the guardians responsible to an unknown person for the insane lady’s safety, and that he was consequently daily informed by the maid of the coming and going of visitors, and of other minor events.  On the other hand it seemed odd that Maria Consuelo should be at liberty to go whithersoever she pleased.  She could not reasonably be supposed to have a guardian in every city of Europe.  The more he thought of this improbability the less he understood the truth.