f you can persuade him to give up affairs I have no objection."

"Persuade him! I never knew a man worth speaking to who could be
persuaded to anything he did not like. Make him--that is the way."

"But since he is behaving himself and is occupied--that is better than
the lives all these young fellows are leading."

"Do not argue with me, Giovanni, I hate it. Besides, your reason is
worth nothing at all. Did I spend my youth over accounts, in the society
of an architect? Did I put water in my wine and sit up like a model
little boy at my papa's table and spend my evenings in carrying my
mamma's fan? Nonsense! And yet all that was expected in my day, in a way
it is not expected now. Look at yourself. You are bad enough--dull
enough, I mean. Did you waste the best years of your life in counting
bricks and measuring mortar?"

"You say that you hate argument, and yet you are arguing. But Orsino
shall please himself, as I did, and in his own way. I will certainly not
interfere."

"Because you know you can do nothing with him!" retorted old Saracinesca
contemptuously.

Giovanni laughed. Twenty years earlier he would have lost his temper to
no purpose. But twenty years of unruffled existence had changed him.

"You are not the man you were," grumbled his father.

"No. I have been too happy, far too long, to be much like what I was at
thirty."

"And do you mean to say I am not happy, and have not been happy, and do
not mean to be happy, and do not wish everybody to be happy, so long as
this old machine hangs together? What nonsense you talk, my boy. Go and
make love to your wife. That is all you are fit for!"

Discussions of this kind were not unfrequent but of course led to
nothing. As a matter of fact Sant' Ilario was quite right in believing
interference useless. It would have been impossible. He was no more able
to change Orsino's determination than he was physically capable of
shaking him. Not that Sant' Ilario was weak, physically or morally, nor
ever had been. But his son had grown up to be stronger than he.

Twelve months passed away. During that time the young man worked, as he
had worked before, regularly and untiringly. But his object now was to
free himself, and he no longer hoped to make a fortune or to do any
thing beyond the strict execution of the contract he had in hand,
determined if possible to avoid taking another. With a coolness and
self-denial beyond his years, he systematically hoarded the all