t."

"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
certain