Maria Consuelo was at home and he was ushered into the little sitting-room without delay.  To his inexpressible disgust he found Del Ferice himself installed upon the chair near the table, engaged in animated conversation with Madame d’Aranjuez.  The situation was awkward in the extreme.  Orsino hoped that Del Ferice would go at once, and thus avoid the necessity of an introduction.  But Ugo did nothing of the kind.  He rose, indeed, but did not take his hat from the table, and stood smiling pleasantly while Orsino shook hands with Maria Consuelo.

“Let me make you acquainted,” she said with exasperating calmness, and she named the two men to each other.

Ugo put out his hand quietly and Orsino was obliged to take it, which he did coldly enough.  Ugo had more than his share of tact, and he never made a disagreeable impression upon any one if he could help it.  Maria Consuelo seemed to take everything for granted, and Orsino’s appearance did not disconcert her in the slightest degree.  Both men sat down and looked at her as though expecting that she would choose a subject of conversation for them.

“We were talking of the change in Rome,” she said.  “Monsieur Del Ferice takes a great interest in all that is doing, and he was explaining to me some of the difficulties with which he has to contend.”

“Don Orsino knows what they are, as well as I, though we might perhaps differ as to the way of dealing with them,” said Del Ferice.

“Yes,” answered Orsino, more coldly than was necessary.  “You play the active part, and we the passive.”

“In a certain sense, yes,” returned the other, quite unruffled.  “You have exactly defined the situation, and ours is by far the more disagreeable and thankless part to play.  Oh—­I am not going to defend all we have done!  I only defend what we mean to do.  Change of any sort is execrable to the man of taste, unless it is brought about by time—­and that is a beautifier which we have not at our disposal.  We are half Vandals and half Americans, and we are in a terrible hurry.”

Maria Consuelo laughed, and Orsino’s face became a shade less gloomy.  He had expected to find Del Ferice the arrogant, self-satisfied apostle of the modern, which he was represented to be.

“Could you not have taken a little more time?” asked Orsino.

“I cannot see how.  Besides it is our time which takes us with it.  So long as Rome was the capital of an idea there was no need of haste in doing anything.  But when it became the capital of a modern kingdom, it fell a victim to modern facts—­which are not beautiful.  The most we can hope to do is to direct the current, clumsily enough, I daresay.  We cannot stop it.  Nothing short of Oriental despotism could.  We cannot prevent people from flocking to the centre, and where there is a population it must be housed.”

“Evidently,” said Madame d’Aranjuez.

“It seems to me that, without disturbing the old city, a new one might have been built beside it,” observed Orsino.