poppies, affording a perpetual
and edifying illustration of the changes of the year, or, as some say,
of the doctrine of immortality. On one of those memorable occasions she
walked through a quadrille with the aged Prince Saracinesca, whereupon
Sant' Ilario slipped his arm round Corona's waist and waltzed with her
down the whole length of the ballroom and back again amidst the applause
of his contemporaries and their children. If Orsino had had a wife he
would have followed their example. As it was, he looked rather gloomily
in the direction of a silent and high-born damsel with whom he was
condemned to dance the cotillon at a later hour.

So all went gaily on until Ash Wednesday extinguished the social flame,
suddenly and beyond relighting. And still Orsino did not meet Maria
Consuelo, and still he hesitated to make another attempt to find her at
home. He began to wonder whether he should ever see her again, and as
the days went by he almost wished that Donna Tullia would send him a
card for her lenten evenings, at which Maria Consuelo regularly assisted
as he learned from the papers. After that first invitation to dinner, he
had expected that Del Ferice's wife would make an attempt to draw him
into her circle; and, indeed, she would probably have done so had she
followed her own instinct instead of submitting to the higher policy
dictated by her husband. Orsino waited in vain, not knowing whether to
be annoyed at the lack of consideration bestowed upon him, or to admire
the tact which assumed that he would never wish to enter the Del Ferice
circle.

It is presumably clear that Orsino was not in love with Madame
d'Aranjuez, and he himself appreciated the fact with a sense of
disappointment. He was amazed at his own coldness and at the
indifference with which he had submitted to what amounted to a most
abrupt dismissal. He even went so far as to believe that Maria Consuelo
had repulsed him designedly in the hope of kindling a more sincere
passion. In that case she had been egregiously mistaken, he thought. He
felt a curiosity to see her again before she left Rome, but it was
nothing more than that. A new and absorbing interest had taken
possession of him which at first left little room in his nature for
anything else. His days were spent in the laborious study of figures and
plans, broken only by occasional short but amusing conversations with
Andrea Contini. His evenings were generally passed among a set of people
wh