“I fear that will be impossible.  My mind is made up.”

“I propose,” continued San Giacinto, “that you remain Prince Saracinesca, that you keep Saracinesca itself, and the palace here in Rome during your lifetime, which I trust may be a long one.  After your death everything returns to us.  My cousin Giovanni and the Princess Sant’ Ilario—­”

“You may call me Corona, if you please,” said the princess suddenly.  Her eyes were fixed on his face, and she was smiling.

Both Saracinesca and Giovanni looked at her in surprise.  It seemed strange to them that she should choose such a moment for admitting San Giacinto to a familiarity he had never before enjoyed.  But for some time she had felt a growing respect for the ex-innkeeper, which was quickened by his present generosity.  San Giacinto’s swarthy face grew a shade darker as the blood mounted to his lean cheeks.  Corona had given him one of the first sensations of genuine pleasure he had ever experienced in his rough life.

“Thank you,” he said simply.  “You two, I was going to say, have palaces of your own and cannot have such close associations with the old places as one who has owned them during so many years.  You,” he continued, turning to the old prince, “will, I hope, accept an arrangement which cannot affect your dignity and which will give me the greatest satisfaction”

“I am very much obliged to you,” answered Saracinesca promptly.  “You are very generous, but I cannot take what you offer.”

“If you feel that you would be taking anything from me, look at it from a different point of view.  You would be conferring a favour instead of accepting one.  Consider my position, when I have taken your place.  It will not be a pleasant one.  The world will abuse me roundly, and will say I have behaved abominably towards you.  Do you fancy that I shall be received as a substitute for the Prince Saracinesca your friends have known so long?  Do you suppose that the vicissitudes of my life are unknown, and that no one will laugh behind my back and point at me as the new, upstart prince?  Few people know me in Rome, and if I have any friends besides you, I have not been made aware of the fact.  Pray consider that in doing what I ask, you would be saving me from very unpleasant social consequences.”

“I should be doing so at the cost of my self-respect,” replied the old man firmly.  “Whatever the consequences are to you, the means of bearing them will be in your hands.  You will have no lack of friends to-morrow, or at least of amiable persons anxious to call themselves by that name.  They will multiply this very night, like mushrooms, and will come about you freshly shaved and smiling to-morrow morning”

“I am aft aid you do not understand me,” said San Giacinto.  “I can leave you the title and yet take one which will serve as well You would call yourself Prince Saracinesca and I should be Saracinesca di San Giacinto.  As for the palace and the place in the mountains, they are so insignificant as compared with the rest that it could not hurt your self-respect to live in them.  Can you not persuade your father?” He turned to Giovanni who had not spoken yet.