“You have said too much or too little,” Spicca answered in an almost indifferent tone.

“How so?”

“Unless you tell me just what she has told you, or show me the letter, I cannot possibly judge of the truth of the tale.”

Orsino raised his head angrily.

“Do you mean me to doubt that Madame d’Aranjuez speaks the truth?” he asked.

“Calm yourself.  Whatever Madame d’Aranjuez has written to you, she believes to be true.  But she may have been herself deceived.”

“In spite of documents—­public registers—­”

“Ah!  Then she has told you about those certificates?”

“That—­and a great deal more which concerns you.”

“Precisely.  A great deal more.  I know all about the registers, as you may easily suppose, seeing that they concern two somewhat important acts in my own life and that I was very careful to have those acts properly recorded, beyond the possibility of denial—­beyond the possibility of denial,” he repeated very slowly and emphatically.  “Do you understand that?”

“It would not enter the mind of a sane person to doubt such evidence,” answered Orsino rather scornfully.

“No, I suppose not.  As you do not therefore come to me for confirmation of what is already undeniable, I cannot understand why you come to me at all in this matter, unless you do so on account of other things which Madame d’Aranjuez has written you, and of which you have so far kept me in ignorance.”

Spicca spoke with a formal manner and in cold tones, drawing up his bent figure a little.  A waiter came to the table and both men ordered their dinner.  The interruption rather favoured the development of a hostile feeling between them, than otherwise.

“I will explain my reasons for coming to find you here,” said Orsino when they were again alone.

“So far as I am concerned, no explanation is necessary.  I am content not to understand.  Moreover, this is a public place, in which we have accidentally met and dined together before.”

“I did not come here by accident,” answered Orsino.  “And I did not come in order to give explanations but to ask for one.”

“Ah?” Spicca eyed him coolly.

“Yes.  I wish to know why you have hated your daughter all her life, why you persecute her in every way, why you—­”

“Will you kindly stop?”

The old man’s voice grew suddenly clear and incisive, and Orsino broke off in the middle of his sentence.  A moment’s pause followed.

“I requested you to stop speaking,” Spicca resumed, “because you were unconsciously making statements which have no foundation whatever in fact.  Observe that I say, unconsciously.  You are completely mistaken.  I do not hate Madame d’Aranjuez.  I love her with all my heart and soul.  I do not persecute her in every way, nor in any way.  On the contrary, her happiness is the only object of such life as I still have to live, and I have little but that life left to give her.  I am in earnest, Orsino.”