“There is Tullia Del Ferice!” exclaimed Sant’ Ilario in surprise.

“I do not know her, except by sight,” observed Orsino indifferently.

The countess was very imposing in her black veil and draperies.  Her red face seemed to lose its colour in the dim church and she affected a slow and stately manner more becoming to her weight than was her natural restless vivacity.  She had got what she desired and she swept proudly along to take her old place among the ladies of Rome.  No one knew whose card she had delivered up at the entrance to the sacristy, and she enjoyed the triumph of showing that the wife of the revolutionary, the banker, the member of parliament, had not lost caste after all.

She looked Giovanni full in the face with her disagreeable blue eyes as she came up, apparently not meaning to recognise him.  Then, just as she passed him, she deigned to make a very slight inclination of the head, just enough to compel Sant’ Ilario to return the salutation.  It was very well done.  Orsino did not know all the details of the past events, but he knew that his father had once wounded Del Ferice in a duel and he looked at Del Fence’s wife with some curiosity.  He had seldom had an opportunity of being so near to her.

“It was certainly not about her that they fought,” he reflected.  “It must have been about some other woman, if there was a woman in the question at all.”

A moment later he was aware that a pair of tawny eyes was fixed on him.  Maria Consuelo was following Donna Tullia at a distance of a dozen yards.  Orsino came forward and his new acquaintance held out her hand.  They had not met since they had first seen each other.

“It was so kind of you,” she said.

“What, Madame?”

“To suggest this to Gouache.  I should have had no ticket—­where shall I sit?”

Orsino did not understand, for though he had mentioned the subject, Gouache had not told him what he meant to do.  But there was no time to be lost in conversation.  Orsino led her to the nearest opening in the tribune and pointed to a seat.

“I called,” he said quickly.  “You did not receive—­”

“Come again, I will be at home,” she answered in a low voice, as she passed him.

She sat down in a vacant place beside Donna Tullia, and Orsino noticed that his mother was just behind them both.  Corona had been watching him unconsciously, as she often did, and was somewhat surprised to see him conducting a lady whom she did not know.  A glance told her that the lady was a foreigner; as such, if she were present at all, she should have been in the diplomatic tribune.  There was nothing to think of, and Corona tried to solve the small social problem that presented itself.  Orsino strolled back to his father’s side.

“Who is she?” inquired Sant’ Ilario with some curiosity.

“The lady who wanted the tiger’s skin—­Aranjuez—­I told you of her.”