As he spoke he placed himself before the closed door and faced the young man.  He was old, emaciated, physically broken down, and his hands were empty.  Orsino was in his first youth, tall, lean, active and very strong, and no coward.  He was moreover in an ugly humour and inclined to be violent on much smaller provocation than he had received.  But Spicca imposed upon him, nevertheless, for he saw that he was in earnest.  Orsino was never afterwards able to recall exactly what passed through his mind at that moment.  He was physically able to thrust Spicca aside and to open the door, without so much as hurting him.  He did not believe that, even in that case, the old man would have insisted upon the satisfaction of arms, nor would he have been afraid to meet him if a duel had been required.  He knew that what withheld him from an act of violence was neither fear nor respect for his adversary’s weakness and age.  Yet he was quite unable to define the influence which at last broke down his resolution.  It was in all probability only the resultant of the argument Spicca had brought to bear and which Maria Consuelo had herself used in the first instance, and of Spicca’s calm, undaunted personality.

The crisis did not last long.  The two men faced each other for ten seconds and then Orsino turned away with an impatient movement of the shoulders.

“Very well,” he said.  “I will not go with her.”

“It is best so,” answered Spicca, leaving the door and returning to his seat.

“I suppose that she will let you know where she is, will she not?” asked Orsino.

“Yes.  She will write to me.”

“Good-night, then.”

“Good-night.”

Without shaking hands, and almost without a glance at the old man, Orsino left the room.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Orsino walked slowly homeward, trying to collect his thoughts and to reach some distinct determination with regard to the future.  He was oppressed by the sense of failure and disappointment and felt inclined to despise himself for his weakness in yielding so easily.  To all intents and purposes he had lost Maria Consuelo, and if he had not lost her through his own fault, he had at least tamely abandoned what had seemed like a last chance of winning her back.  As he thought of all that had happened he tried to fix some point in the past, at which he might have acted differently, and from which another act of consequence might have begun.  But that was not easy.  Events had followed each other with a certain inevitable logic, which only looked unreasonable because he suspected the existence of facts beyond his certain knowledge.  His great mistake had been in going to Spicca, but nothing could have been more natural, under the circumstances, than his appeal to Maria Consuelo’s father, nothing more unexpected than the latter’s determined refusal to help him.  That there was weight in the argument used by both Spicca and Maria Consuelo herself, he could not deny; but he failed to see why the marriage was so utterly impossible as they both declared it to be.  There must be much more behind the visible circumstances than he could guess.