l come back."

"Have you been drinking from the Trevi fountain by moonlight, like those
mad English?" he asked, with a smile.

"It is not necessary. I know that I shall come back--if I am alive."

"How you say that! You are as strong as I--"

"Stronger, perhaps. But then--who knows! The weak ones sometimes last
the longest."

Orsino thought she was growing very sentimental, though as he looked at
her he was struck again by the look of suffering in her eyes. Whatever
weakness she felt was visible there, there was nothing in the full, firm
little hand, in the strong and easy pose of the head, in the softly
coloured ear half hidden by her hair, that could suggest a coming danger
to her splendid health.

"Let us take it for granted that you will come back to us," said Orsino
cheerfully.

"Very well, we will take it for granted. What then?"

The question was so sudden and direct that Orsino fancied there ought to
be an evident answer to it.

"What then?" he repeated, after a moment's hesitation. "I suppose you
will live in these same rooms again, and with your permission, a certain
Orsino Saracinesca will visit you from time to time, and be rude, and be
sent away into exile for his sins. And Madame d'Aranjuez will go a great
deal to Madame Del Ferice's and to other ultra-White houses, which will
prevent the said Orsino from meeting her in society. She will also be
more beautiful than ever, and the daily papers will describe a certain
number of gowns which she will bring with her from Paris, or Vienna, or
London, or whatever great capital is the chosen official residence of
her great dressmaker. And the world will not otherwise change very
materially in the course of eight months."

Orsino laughed lightly, not at his own speech, which he had constructed
rather clumsily under the spur of necessity, but in the hope that she
would laugh, too, and begin to talk more carelessly. But Maria Consuelo
was evidently not inclined for anything but the most serious view of the
world, past, present and future.

"Yes," she answered gravely. "I daresay you are right. One comes, one
shows one's clothes, and one goes away again--and that is all. It would
be very much the same if one did not come. It is a great mistake to
think oneself necessary to any one. Only things are necessary--food,
money and something to talk about."

"You might add friends to the list," said Orsino, who was afraid of
being called brutal again if he did n