owance he
received from his father, in order to put together a sum of money for
poor Contini. He made economies everywhere, refused to go into society
and spent his evenings in reading. His acquired manner stood him in good
stead, but he could not bear more than a limited amount of the daily
talk in the family. Being witty, rather than gay, if he could be said to
be either, he found himself inclined rather to be bitter than amusing
when he was wearied by the monotonous conversation of others. He knew
this to be a mistake and controlled himself, taking refuge in solitude
and books when he could control himself no longer.

Whether he loved Maria Consuelo still, or not, it was clear that he was
not inclined to love any one else for the present. The tolerably
harmless dissipation and wildness of the two or three years he had spent
in England could not account for such a period of coldness as followed
his separation from Maria Consuelo. He had by no means exhausted the
pleasures of life and his capacity for enjoyment could not even be said
to have reached its height. But he avoided the society of women even
more consistently than he shunned the club and the card table.

More than a year had gone by since he had heard from Maria Consuelo. He
met Spicca from time to time, looking now as though he had not a day to
live, but neither of them mentioned past events. The Romans had talked a
little of her sudden change of plans, for it had been known that she had
begun to furnish a large apartment for the winter of the previous year,
and had then very unaccountably changed her mind and left the place in
the hands of an agent to be sub-let. People said she had lost her
fortune. Then she had been forgotten in the general disaster that
followed, and no one had taken the trouble to remember her since then.
Even Gouache, who had once been so enthusiastic over her portrait, did
not seem to know or care what had become of her. Once only, and quite
accidentally, Orsino had authentic information of her whereabouts. He
took up an English society journal one evening and glanced idly over the
paragraphs. Maria Consuelo's name arrested his attention. A certain very
high and mighty old lady of royal lineage was about to travel in Egypt
during the winter. "Her Royal Highness," said the paper, "will be
accompanied by the Countess d'Aranjuez d'Aragona." Orsino's hand shook a
little as he laid the sheet aside, and he was pale when he rose a few
momen