of the most difficult in which he had found himself for some time.

"I repeat," he said, with a pleasant smile, "that it is hopeless to
defend all of what is actually done in our day in Rome. Some of your
friends and many of mine are building houses which even age and ruin
will never beautify. The only defensible part of the affair is the
political change which has brought about the necessity of building at
all, and upon that point I think that we may agree to differ. Do you not
think so, Don Orsino?"

"By all means," answered the young man, conscious that the proposal was
both just and fitting.

"And for the rest, both your friends and mine--for all I know, your own
family and certainly I myself--have enormous interests at stake. We may
at least agree to hope that none of us may be ruined."

"Certainly--though we have had nothing to do with the matter. Neither my
father nor my grandfather have entered into any such speculation."

"It is a pity," said Del Ferice thoughtfully.

"Why a pity?"

"On the one hand my instincts are basely commercial," Del Ferice
answered with a frank laugh. "No matter how great a fortune may be, it
may be doubled and trebled. You must remember that I am a banker in fact
if not exactly in designation, and the opportunity is excellent. But the
greater pity is that such men as you, Don Orsino, who could exercise as
much influence as it might please you to use, leave it to men--very
unlike you, I fancy--to murder the architecture of Rome and prepare the
triumph of the hideous."

Orsino did not answer the remark, although he was not altogether
displeased with the idea it conveyed. Maria Consuelo looked at him.

"Why do you stand aloof and let things go from bad to worse when you
might really do good by joining in the affairs of the day?" she asked.

"I could not join in them, if I would," answered Orsino.

"Why not?"

"Because I have not command of a hundred francs in the world, Madame.
That is the simplest and best of all reasons."

Del Ferice laughed incredulously.

"The eldest son of Casa Saracinesca would not find that a practical
obstacle," he said, taking his hat and rising to go. "Besides, what is
needed in these transactions is not so much ready money as courage,
decision and judgment. There is a rich firm of contractors now doing a
large business, who began with three thousand francs as their whole
capital--what you might lose at cards in an evening without missing it,
tho