in his accustomed place.

"I thought you were not coming," she said.

"Why?"

"You always come at five. It is half-past to-day." Orsino looked at his
watch.

"Do you notice whether I come or not?" he asked.

Maria Consuelo glanced at his face, and laughed.

"What have you been doing to-day?" she asked. "That is much more
interesting."

"Is it? I am afraid not. I have been listening to those disagreeable
things which are called truths by the people who say them. I have
listened to two lectures delivered by two very intelligent men for my
especial benefit. It seems to me that as soon as I make a good
resolution it becomes the duty of sensible people to demonstrate that I
am a fool."

"You are not in a good humour. Tell me all about it."

"And weary you with my grievances? No. Is Del Ferice coming this
afternoon?"

"How can I tell? He does not come often."

"I thought he came almost every day," said Orsino gloomily.

He was disappointed, but Maria Consuelo did not understand what was the
matter. She leaned forward in her low seat, her chin resting upon one
hand, and her tawny eyes fixed on Orsino's.

"Tell me, my friend--are you unhappy? Can I do anything? Will you tell
me?"

It was not easy to resist the appeal. Though the two had grown intimate
of late, there had hitherto always been something cold and reserved
behind her outwardly friendly manner. To-day she seemed suddenly willing
to be different. Her easy, graceful attitude, her soft voice full of
promised sympathy, above all the look in her strange eyes revealed a
side of her character which Orsino had not suspected and which affected
him in a way he could not have described.

Without hesitation he told her his story, from beginning to end, simply,
without comment and without any of the cutting phrases which came so
readily to his tongue on most occasions. She listened very thoughtfully
to the end.

"Those things are not misfortunes," she said. "But they may be the
beginnings of unhappiness. To be unhappy is worse than any misfortune.
What right has your father to laugh at you? Because he never needed to
do anything for himself, he thinks it absurd that his son should dislike
the lazy life that is prepared for him. It is not reasonable--it is not
kind!"

"Yet he means to be both, I suppose," said Orsino bitterly.

"Oh, of course! People always mean to be the soul of logic and the
paragon of charity! Especially where their own children are co