'Nothing disturbs me,' replied Orsino, rather sadly.
Ippolito made up his mind to speak at last.
'Orsino,' be began quietly, 'I know all about you and Donna Vittoria. As we are going to be so much together, it is better that I should tell you so. I hate secrets, and I would rather not make a secret of knowing yours—if it is one.'
Orsino had looked round sharply when the priest had first spoken, but had then gone back to what he was doing.
'I am glad you know,' he said, 'though I would not have told you. I have spoken to our father and mother about it. The one calls me a fool, and the other thinks me one. They are not very encouraging. As for her family, her mother curses me for having killed her favourite son, and her brothers pretend that she is mad and then intrench themselves behind her to say that it is impossible. I do not blame them much—Heaven knows, I do not blame her at all. All the same, Vittoria and I love each other. It is an impossible situation. I cannot even see her to say goodbye. I wish I could find a way out of it!' He laughed bitterly.
'I wish I could,' echoed his brother. 'But I am only a priest, and you call me a dilettante churchman, at that. Let us see. Let us argue the case as though we were in the theological school. No—I am serious—you need not frown. How many things can happen? Three, I think. There are three conceivable terminations. Either you part for ever and forget each other—'
'You may eliminate that,' observed Orsino.
'Very well. Or else you continue to love each other, in which event you must either succeed in getting married, or not, and those are the other two cases.'
'One does not need to be a theologian to see that. Similarly a man must either live or die, and a door must be either open or shut, on pain of not being a door at all.'
'I have not finished,' objected Ippolito. 'In fact, I have only begun. For the sake of argument, we will assume first that you continue to love each other, but cannot get married.'