Her calmness, or what appeared to him her calmness, made it even less probable, he thought, that she meant to part from him.  But the thought alone was enough to disturb him seriously.  He had suffered a severe shock with outward composure but not without inward suffering, followed naturally enough by something like angry resentment.  As he viewed the situation, Maria Consuelo had alternately drawn him on and disappointed him from the very beginning; she had taken delight in forcing him to speak out his love, only to chill him the next moment, or the next day, with the certainty that she did not love him sincerely.  Just then he would have preferred not to put into words the thoughts of her that crossed his mind.  They would have expressed a disbelief in her character which he did not really feel and an opinion of his own judgment which he would rather not have accepted.

He even went so far, in his anger, as to imagine what would happen if he suddenly rose to go.  She would put on that sad look of hers and give him her hand coldly.  Then just as he reached the door she would call him back, only to send him away again.  He would find on the following day that she had not left town after all, or, at most, that she had gone to Florence for a day or two, while the workmen completed the furnishing of her apartment.  Then she would come back and would meet him just as though there had never been anything between them.

The anticipation was so painful to him that he wished to have it realised and over as soon as possible, and he looked at her again before rising from his seat.  He could hardly believe that she was the same woman who had stood with him, watching the thunderstorm, on the previous afternoon.

He saw that she was pale, but she was not facing the light and the expression of her face was not distinctly visible.  On the whole, he fancied that her look was one of indifference.  Her hands lay idly upon her fan and by the drooping of her lids she seemed to be looking at them.  The full, curved lips were closed, but not drawn in as though in pain, nor pouting as though in displeasure.  She appeared to be singularly calm.  After hesitating another moment Orsino rose to his feet.  He had made up his mind what to say, for it was little enough, but his voice trembled a little.

“Good-bye, Madame.”

Maria Consuelo started slightly and looked up, as though to see whether he really meant to go at that moment.  She had no idea that he really thought of taking her at her word and parting then and there.  She did not realise how true it was that she was much older than he and she had never believed him to be as impulsive as he sometimes seemed.

“Do not go yet,” she said, instinctively.

“Since you say that we must part—­” he stopped, as though leaving her to finish the sentence in imagination.

A frightened look passed quickly over Maria Consuelo’s face.  She made as though she would have taken his hand, then drew back her own and bit her lip, not angrily but as though she were controlling something.