“What a fool I am!” he exclaimed impatiently, as he turned back and walked in the direction of his home.  “And yet she told me that I would make a good actor.  They say that an actor should never be carried away by his part.”

At dinner that evening he was alternately talkative and very silent.

“Where have you been to-day, Orsino?” asked his father, looking at him curiously.

“I spent half an hour with Madame d’Aranjuez, and then went for a walk,” answered Orsino with sudden indifference.

“What is she like?” asked Corona.

“Clever—­at least in Rome.”  There was an odd, nervous sharpness about the answer.

Old Saracinesca raised his keen eyes without lifting his head and looked hard at his grandson.  He was a little bent in his great old age.

“The boy is in love!” he exclaimed abruptly, and a laugh that was still deep and ringing followed the words.  Orsino recovered his self-possession and smiled carelessly.

Corona was thoughtful during the remainder of the meal.

CHAPTER VII.

The Princess Sant’ Ilario’s early life had been deeply stirred by the great makers of human character, sorrow and happiness.  She had suffered profoundly, she had borne her trials with a rare courage, and her reward, if one may call it so, had been very great.  She had seen the world and known it well, and the knowledge had not been forgotten in the peaceful prosperity of later years.  Gifted with a beauty not equalled, perhaps, in those times, endowed with a strong and passionate nature under a singularly cold and calm outward manner, she had been saved from many dangers by the rarest of commonplace qualities, common sense.  She had never passed for an intellectual person, she had never been very brilliant in conversation, she had even been thought old-fashioned in her prejudices concerning the books she read.  But her judgment had rarely failed her at critical moments.  Once only, she remembered having committed a great mistake, of which the sudden and unexpected consequences had almost wrecked her life.  But in that case she had suffered her heart to lead her, an innocent girl’s good name had been at stake, and she had rashly taken a responsibility too heavy for love itself to bear.  Those days were long past now; twenty years separated Corona, the mother of four tall sons, from the Corona who had risked all to save poor little Faustina Montevarchi.

But even she knew that a state of such perpetual and unclouded happiness could hardly last a lifetime, and she had forced herself, almost laughing at the thought, to look forward to the day when Orsino must cease to be a boy and must face the world of strong loves and hates through which most men have to pass, and which all men must have known in order to be men indeed.