'That is exactly what I should think,' answered Orsino gravely. 'Were you sorry to leave the convent?'
'Yes, I cried a great deal. It was my home for so many years, and I was so happy there.'
The girl's eyes grew dreamy as she looked absently across the table at Guendalina Pietrasanta. She was evidently lost in her recollections of her life with the nuns. Orsino was almost amused at his own failure.
'Should you have liked to stay and be a nun yourself?' he inquired, with a smile.
'Yes, indeed! At least—when I came away I wished to stay.'
'But you have changed your mind since? You find the world pleasanter than you expected? It is not a bad place, I daresay.'
'They told me that it was very bad,' said Vittoria seriously. 'Of course they must know, but I do not quite understand what they mean. Can you tell me something about it, and why it is bad, and what all the wickedness is?'
Orsino looked at her quietly for a moment, realising very clearly the whiteness of her life's unwritten page.
'Your nuns may be right,' he said at last. 'I am not in love with the world, but I do not believe that it is so very wicked. At least, there are many good people in it, and one can find them if one chooses. No doubt, we are all miserable sinners in a theological sense, but I am not a theologian. I have a brother who is a priest, and you will see him after dinner; but though he is a very good man, he does not give one the impression of believing that the world is absolutely bad. It is true that he is rather a dilettante priest.'
Vittoria was evidently shocked, for her face grew extraordinarily grave and a shade paler. She looked at Orsino in a startled way and then at her plate.