'Yes. I should think you might be very glad to get rid of it. There is no difficulty about it, is there?'
'Only—I have another brother. He likes it and has remained there. His name is Ferdinando. No one knows why he is so fond of the place. They need his consent, in order to sell it, and he will not agree.'
'I understand. What sort of a man is your brother Ferdinando?'
'I have not seen him for ten years. They are afraid of—I mean, he is afraid of nothing.'
There was something odd, Orsino thought, about the way the young girl shut her lips when she checked herself in the middle of the sentence, but he had no idea what she had been about to say. Just then Corona nodded slightly to the aged Prince at the other end of the table, and dinner was over.
'I should think it would be necessary for San Giacinto to see this other brother of yours,' observed Orsino, finishing the conversation as he rose and stood ready to take Vittoria out.
The little ungloved hand lay like a white butterfly on his black sleeve, and she had to raise her arm a little to take his, though she was not short. Just before them went San Giacinto, darkening the way like a figure of fate. Vittoria looked up at him, almost awe-struck at his mere size.
'How tall he is!' she exclaimed in a very low voice. 'How very tall he is!' she said again.
'We are used to him,' answered Orsino, with a short laugh. 'But he has a big heart, though he looks so grim.'
Half an hour later, when the men were smoking in a room by themselves, San Giacinto came and sat down by Orsino in the remote corner where the latter had established himself, with a cigarette. The giant, as ever of old, had a villainous-looking black cigar between his teeth.