Corbario backed till his heels were against the fender, and tried to smile.

“My dear Marcello!” he protested.  “What nonsense is this?  You know I am not in earnest!”

“I am,” said Marcello quietly enough, but not moving.

The half-invalid boy was not a boy any longer, nor an invalid either, and he had found his hold on things, since the days when Folco had been used to lead him as easily as if he had no will of his own.  No one would have judged him to be a weak man now, physically or mentally.  His frame was spare and graceful still, but there was energy and directness in his movements, his shoulders were square and he held his head high; yet it was his face that had changed most, though in a way very hard to define.  A strong manhood sometimes follows a weak boyhood, very much to the surprise of those who have long been used to find feebleness where strength has suddenly developed.  Marcello Consalvi had never been cowardly, or even timid; he had only been weak in will as in body, an easy prey to the man who had tried to ruin him, body and soul, in the hope of sending him to his grave.

“I really cannot understand you, my dear boy,” Corbario said very sweetly.  “You used to be so gentle!  But now you fly into a passion for the merest thing.”

“I told you that I would not argue with you,” Marcello said, keeping his temper.  “This is my house, and I choose that you should leave it at once.  Go your way, and leave me to go mine.  You are amply provided for, as long as you live, and you do not need my hospitality any longer, since you are no longer my guardian.  Live where you please.  You shall not stay here.”

“I certainly don’t care to stay here if you don’t want me,” Folco answered.  “But this is really too absurd!  You must be going mad, to take such a tone with me!”

“It is the only one which any honourable man who knows you would be inclined to take.”

“Take care!  You are going too far.”

“Because you are under my roof?  Yes, perhaps.  As my guest, if I have been hasty, I apologise for expressing my opinion of you.  I am going out now.  I hope you will find it convenient to have left before I come in.”

Thereupon Marcello turned his back on Corbario, crossed the great library deliberately, and went out without looking round.

Folco was left alone, and his still face did not even express surprise or annoyance.  He had indeed foreseen the coming break, ever since he had returned to the villa three weeks earlier, when Marcello had received him with evident coldness, not even explaining where he had been since they had last parted.  But Folco had not expected that the rupture would come so suddenly, still less that he was literally to be turned out of the house which he still regarded as his own, and in which he had spent so many prosperous years.  There had, indeed, been some coldly angry words between the two men.  Marcello had told Folco