“I make no pretence to being a man of head, Madame.”

“You are not easily caught.”

“Nor Del Ferice either.”

“Why do you talk of him?”

“The opportunity is good, Madame.  As he is just gone, we know that he is not coming.”

“You can be very sarcastic, when you like,” said Maria Consuelo.  “But I do not believe that you are as bitter as you make yourself out to be.  I do not even believe that you found Del Ferice so very disagreeable as you pretend.  You were certainly interested in what he said.”

“Interest is not always agreeable.  The guillotine, for instance, possesses the most lively interest for the condemned man at an execution.”

“Your illustrations are startling.  I once saw an execution, quite by accident, and I would rather not think of it.  But you can hardly compare Del Ferice to the guillotine.”

“He is as noiseless, as keen and as sure,” said Orsino smartly.

“There is such a thing as being too clever,” answered Maria Consuelo, without a smile.

“Is Del Ferice a case of that?”

“No.  You are.  You say cutting things merely because they come into your head, though I am sure that you do not always mean them.  It is a bad habit.”

“Because it makes enemies, Madame?” Orsino was annoyed by the rebuke.

“That is the least good of good reasons.”

“Another, then?”

“It will prevent people from loving you,” said Maria Consuelo gravely.

“I never heard that—­”

“No?  It is true, nevertheless.”

“In that case I will reform at once,” said Orsino, trying to meet her eyes.  But she looked away from him.

“You think that I am preaching to you,” she answered.  “I have not the right to do that, and if I had, I would certainly not use it.  But I have seen something of the world.  Women rarely love a man who is bitter against any one but himself.  If he says cruel things of other women, the one to whom he says them believes that he will say much worse of her to the next he meets; if he abuses the men she knows, she likes it even less—­it is an attack on her judgment, on her taste and perhaps upon a half-developed sympathy for the man attacked.  One should never be witty at another person’s expense, except with one’s own sex.”  She laughed a little.

“What a terrible conclusion!”

“Is it?  It is the true one.”

“Then the way to win a woman’s love is to praise her acquaintances?  That is original.”

“I never said that.”

“No?  I misunderstood.  What is the best way?”

“Oh—­it is very simple,” laughed Maria Consuelo.

“Tell her you love her, and tell her so again and again—­you will certainly please her in the end.”

“Madame—­” Orsino stopped, and folded his hands with an air of devout supplication.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing!  I was about to begin.  It seemed so simple, as you say.”