"It is a pity she is a widow," observed Contini.
"Why?"
"She would make such a beautiful princess."
"You must be mad, Contini!" exclaimed Orsino, half-pleased and half-irritated. "Do not talk of such follies."
"All well! Forgive me," answered the architect a little humbly. "I am not you, you know, and my head is not yours—nor my name—nor my heart either."
Contini sighed, puffed at his cigar and took up some papers. He was already a little in love with Maria Consuelo, and the idea that any man might marry her if he pleased, but would not, was incomprehensible to him.
The day wore on. Orsino finished his work as thoroughly as though he had been a paid clerk, put everything in order and went away. Late in the afternoon he went to see Maria Consuelo. He knew that she would usually be already out at that hour, and he fancied that he was leaving something to chance in the matter of finding her, though an unacknowledged instinct told him that she would stay at home after the fatigue of the morning.
"We shall not be interrupted by Count Spicca to-day," she said, as he sat down beside her.
In spite of what he knew, the hard tone of her voice roused again in Orsino that feeling of pity for the old man which he had felt on the previous day.
"Does it not seem to you," he asked, "that if you receive him at all, you might at least conceal something of your hatred for him?"