of it in business, at the
best."

His mother's black eyes seemed to grow blacker, and the delicate nostril
quivered a little.

"If that is true, I wish you had never meddled in these affairs," she
said, proudly. "But you talked differently last spring, and you made me
see it all in another way. You made me feel, on the contrary that in
doing something for yourself, in showing that you were able to
accomplish something, in asserting your independence, you were making
yourself more worthy of respect--and I have respected you accordingly."

"Exactly," answered Orsino, catching at the old argument. "That is just
what I wished to do. What I said a moment since was in the way of a
generality. Business means a struggle for money, I suppose, and that, in
itself, is not dignified. But it is not dishonourable. After all, the
means may justify the end."

"I hate that saying!" exclaimed Corona hotly. "I wish you were free of
the whole affair."

"So do I, with all my heart!"

A short silence followed.

"If I had known all this three months ago," Corona resumed, "I would
have taken the money and given it to you, to clear yourself. I thought
you were succeeding and I have used all the funds I could gather to buy
the Montevarchi's property between us and Affile and in planting
eucalyptus trees in that low land of mine where the people have suffered
so much from fever. I have nothing at my disposal unless I borrow. Why
did you not tell me the truth in the summer, Orsino? Why have you let me
imagine that you were prospering all along, when you have been and are
at the point of failure? It is too bad--"

She broke off suddenly and clasped her hands together on her knee.

"It is only lately that business has gone so badly," said Orsino.

"It was all wrong from the beginning! I should never have encouraged
you. Your father was right, as he always is--and now you must tell him
so."

But Orsino refused to go to his father, except in the last extremity. He
represented that it was better, and more dignified, since Corona
insisted upon the point of dignity, to fight the battle alone so long as
there was a chance of winning. His mother, on the other hand, maintained
that he should free himself at once and at any cost. A few months
earlier he could easily have persuaded her that he was right; but she
seemed changed since he had parted from her, and he fancied that his
father's influence had been at work with her. This he resented bi