“Everything in life is absurd if you take the opposite point of view.  Lunatics find endless amusement in watching sane people.”

“And of course, you are the sane people,” observed Maria Consuelo.

“Of course.”

“What becomes of me?  I suppose I do not exist?  You would not be rude enough to class me with the lunatics.”

“Certainly not.  You will of course choose to be a black.”

“In order to be discontented, as you are?”

“Discontented?”

“Yes.  Are you not utterly out of sympathy with your surroundings?  Are you not hampered at every step by a network of traditions which have no meaning to your intelligence, but which are laid on you like a harness upon a horse, and in which you are driven your daily little round of tiresome amusement—­or dissipation?  Do you not hate the Corso as an omnibus horse hates it?  Do you not really hate the very faces of all those people who effectually prevent you from using your own intelligence, your own strength—­your own heart?  One sees it in your face.  You are too young to be tired of life.  No, I am not going to call you a boy, though I am older than you, Don Orsino.  You will find people enough in your own surroundings to call you a boy—­because you are not yet so utterly tamed and wearied as they are, and for no other reason.  You are a man.  I do not know your age, but you do not talk as boys do.  You are a man—­then be a man altogether, be independent—­use your hands for something better than throwing mud at other people’s houses merely because they are new!”

Orsino looked at her in astonishment.  This was certainly not the sort of conversation he had anticipated when he had entered the room.

“You are surprised because I speak like this,” she said after a short pause.  “You are a Saracinesca and I am—­a stranger, here to-day and gone to-morrow, whom you will probably never see again.  It is amusing, is it not?  Why do you not laugh?”

Maria Consuelo smiled and as usual her strong red lips closed as soon as she had finished speaking, a habit which lent the smile something unusual, half-mysterious, and self-contained.

“I see nothing to laugh at,” answered Orsino.  “Did the mythological personage whose name I have forgotten laugh when the sphynx proposed the riddle to him?”

“That is the third time within the last few days that I have been compared to a sphynx by you or Gouache.  It lacks originality in the end.”

“I was not thinking of being original.  I was too much interested.  Your riddle is the problem of my life.”

“The resemblance ceases there.  I cannot eat you up if you do not guess the answer—­or if you do not take my advice.  I am not prepared to go so far as that.”

“Was it advice?  It sounded more like a question.”

“I would not ask one when I am sure of getting no answer.  Besides, I do not like being laughed at.”