“Are you threatening me again?”

“I am not doing anything of the kind.  I never threaten any one.  I could kill you as easily as I killed Aranjuez, old and decrepit as I look, and I should be perfectly indifferent to the opprobrium of killing so young a man—­though I think that, looking at us two, many people might suppose the advantage to be on your side rather than on mine.  But young men nowadays do not learn to handle arms.  Short of laying violent hands upon me, you will find it quite impossible to provoke me.  I am almost old enough to be your grandfather, and I understand you very well.  You love Madame d’Aranjuez.  She knows that to marry you would be to bring about such a quarrel with your family as might ruin half your life, and she has the rare courage to tell you so and to refuse your offer.  You think that I can do something to help you and you are incensed because I am powerless, and furious because I object to your leaving Rome in the same train with her, against her will.  You are more furious still to-day because you have adopted her belief that I am a monster of iniquity.  Observe—­that, apart from hindering you from a great piece of folly the other day, I have never interfered.  I do not interfere now.  As I said then, follow her if you please, persuade her to marry you if you can, quarrel with all your family if you like.  It is nothing to me.  Publish the banns of your marriage on the doors of the Capitol and declare to the whole world that Madame d’Aranjuez, the future Princess Saracinesca, is the daughter of Count Spicca and Lucrezia Ferris, his lawful wife.  There will be a little talk, but it will not hurt me.  People have kept their marriages a secret for a whole lifetime before now.  I do not care what you do, nor what the whole tribe of the Saracinesca may do, provided that none of you do harm to Maria Consuelo, nor bring useless suffering upon her.  If any of you do that, I will kill you.  That at least is a threat, if you like.  Good-night.”

Thereupon Spicca rose suddenly from his seat, leaving his dinner unfinished, and went out.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Orsino did not leave Rome after all.  He was not in reality prevented from doing so by the necessity of attending to his business, for he might assuredly have absented himself for a week or two at almost any time before the new year, without incurring any especial danger.  From time to time, at ever increasing intervals, he felt strongly impelled to rejoin Maria Consuelo in Paris where she had ultimately determined to spend the autumn and winter, but the impulse always lacked just the measure of strength which would have made it a resolution.  When he thought of his many hesitations he did not understand himself and he fell in his own estimation, so that he became by degrees more silent and melancholy of disposition than had originally been natural with him.

He had much time for reflection and he constantly brooded over the situation in which he found himself.  The question seemed to be, whether he loved Maria Consuelo or not, since he was able to display such apparent indifference to her absence.  In reality he also doubted whether he was loved by her, and the one uncertainty was fully as great as the other.