tini. Prices may fall, and some people
will lose, but you cannot destroy real estate permanently."

"Its value may be destroyed for ten or twenty years, which is
practically the same thing when people have no other property. Take this
block we are building. It represents a large sum. Say that in the next
six months there are half a dozen failures like Ronco's and that a panic
sets in. We could then neither sell the houses nor let them. What would
they represent to us? Nothing. Failure--like the failure of everybody
else. Do you know where the millions really are? You ought to know
better than most people. They are in Casa Saracinesca and in a few other
great houses which have not dabbled in all this business, and perhaps
they are in the pockets of a few clever men who have got out of it all
in time. They are certainly not in the firm of Andrea Contini and
Company, which will assuredly be bankrupt before the winter is out."

Contini bit his cigar savagely, thrust his hands into his pockets and
looked out of the window, turning his back on Orsino. The latter watched
his companion in surprise, not understanding why his dismal forebodings
should find such sudden and strong expression.

"I think you exaggerate very much," said Orsino. "There is always risk
in such business as this. But it strikes me that the risk was greater
when we had less capital."

"Capital!" exclaimed the architect contemptuously and without turning
round. "Can we draw a cheque--a plain unadorned cheque and not a
draft--for a hundred thousand francs to-day? Or shall we be able to draw
it to-morrow? Capital! We have a lot of brick and mortar in our
possession, put together more or less symmetrically according to our
taste, and practically unpaid for. If we manage to sell it in time we
shall get the difference between what is paid and what we owe. That is
our capital. It is problematical, to say the least of it. If we realise
less than we owe we are bankrupt."

He came back suddenly to Orsino's table as he ceased speaking and his
face showed that he was really disturbed. Orsino looked at him steadily
for a few seconds.

"It is not only Ronco's failure that frightens you, Contini. There must
be something else."

"More of the same kind. There is enough to frighten any one."

"No, there is something else. You have been talking with somebody."

"With Del Ferice's confidential clerk. Yes--it is quite true. I was with
him last night."

"And what did