“I think you are threatening me, Count Spicca,” said Orsino, flushing slowly but meeting the other’s look with unflinching coolness.

“No.  I am not.  And I will not let you quarrel with me, either, Orsino.  I have a right to say this to you where she is concerned—­a right you do not dream of.  You cannot quarrel about that.”

Orsino did not answer at once.  He saw that Spicca was very much in earnest, and was surprised that his manner now should be less calm and collected than on the occasion of their previous conversation, when the count had taken enough wine to turn the heads of most men.  He did not doubt in the least the statement Spicca made.  It agreed exactly with what Maria Consuelo herself had said of him.  And the statement certainly changed the face of the situation.  Orsino admitted to himself that he had never before thought of marrying Madame d’Aranjuez.  He had not even taken into consideration the consequences of loving her and of being loved by her in return.  The moment he thought of a possible marriage as the result of such a mutual attachment, he realised the enormous difficulties which stood in the way of such a union, and his first impulse was to give up visiting her altogether.  What Spicca said was at once reasonable and unreasonable.  Maria Consuelo’s husband was dead, and she doubtless expected to marry again.  Orsino had no right to stand in the way of others who might present themselves as suitors.  But it was beyond belief that Spicca should expect Orsino to marry her himself, knowing Rome and the Romans as he did.

The two had been standing still in the shade.  Orsino began to walk forward again before he spoke.  Something in his own reflexions shocked him.  He did not like to think that an impassable social barrier existed between Maria Consuelo and himself.  Yet, in his total ignorance of her origin and previous life the stories which had been circulated about her recalled themselves with unpleasant distinctness.  Nothing that Spicca had said when they had dined together had made the matter any clearer, though the assurance that the deceased Aranjuez had come to his end by Spicca’s instrumentality sufficiently contradicted the worst, if also the least credible, point in the tales which had been repeated by the gossips early in the previous winter.  All the rest belonged entirely to the category of the unknown.  Yet Spicca spoke seriously of a possible marriage and had gone to the length of wishing that it might be brought about.  At last Orsino spoke.

“You say that you have a right to say what you have said,” he began.  “In that case I think I have a right to ask a question which you ought to answer.  You talk of my marrying Madame d’Aranjuez.  You ought to tell me whether that is possible.”

“Possible?” cried Spicca almost angrily.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean this.  You know us all, as you know me.  You know the enormous prejudices in which we are brought up.  You know perfectly well that although I am ready to laugh at some of them, there are others at which I do not laugh.  Yet you refused to tell me who Madame d’Aranjuez was, when I asked you, the other day.  I do not even know her father’s name, much less her mother’s—­”