ugh weight to carry inward conviction with it in the
minds of people who had no interest in being convinced. It was only too
plain that, unless Maria Consuelo, or Spicca, or both, were willing to
tell the strange story in its integrity, there were not proof enough to
convince the most willing person of her right to the social position she
occupied after that had once been called into question. To Orsino's mind
the very fact that it had been questioned at all demonstrated
sufficiently a carelessness on her own part which could only proceed
from the certainty of possessing that right beyond dispute. It would
doubtless have been possible for her to provide herself from the first
with something in the nature of a guarantee for her identity. She could
surely have had the means, through some friend of her own elsewhere, of
making the acquaintance of some one in society, who would have vouched
for her and silenced the carelessly spiteful talk concerning her which
had gone the rounds when she first appeared. But she had seemed to be
quite indifferent. She had refused Orsino's pressing offer to bring her
into relations with his mother, whose influence would have been enough
to straighten a reputation far more doubtful than Maria Consuelo's, and
she had almost wilfully thrown herself into a sort of intimacy with the
Countess Del Ferice.

But Orsino, as he thought of these matters, saw how futile such
arguments must seem to his own people, and how absurdly inadequate they
were to better his own state of mind, since he needed no conviction
himself but sought the means of convincing others. One point alone gave
him some hope. Under the existing laws the inevitable legal marriage
would require the production of documents which would clear the whole
story at once. On the other hand, that fact could make Orsino's position
no easier with his father and mother until the papers were actually
produced. People cannot easily be married secretly in Rome, where the
law requires the publication of banns by posting them upon the doors of
the Capitol, and the name of Orsino Saracinesca would not be easily
overlooked. Orsino was aware of course that he was not in need of his
parents' consent for his marriage, but he had not been brought up in a
way to look upon their acquiescence as unnecessary. He was deeply
attached to them both, but especially to his mother who had been his
staunch friend in his efforts to do something for himself, and to whom