'Then there is nothing more to be said, I suppose,' he observed.
'Nothing more on that subject,' answered Sant' Ilario. 'Not that I have the least objection to saying over again all I have said,' he added.
'At all events, you do not pretend that you have any objection to Donna Vittoria herself, do you?'
'No—except that she has made a fool of you. Most women make fools of men, sooner or later.'
'Perhaps, but you should be the last person to say so, I think.'
'I married with my father's consent,' replied Sant' Ilario, as though the fact were an unanswerable argument. 'If I had made to him such a proposition as you are making to me, he would have answered in a very different way, my boy, I can tell you!'
'In what way?' asked Orsino.
'In what way? Why, he would have been furiously angry! He would have called me a fool and an idiot, and would have told me to go to the devil.'
Orsino laughed in spite of himself.