"I fancied you spoke rather disparagingly," said Maria Consuelo with a certain degree of interest.
"I? No indeed. On the contrary, Don Orsino is a very fine fellow—but thrown away, positively thrown away in his present surroundings. Of what use is all this English education—but you are a stranger, Madame, you cannot understand our Roman point of view."
"If you could explain it to me, I might, perhaps," suggested the other.
"Ah yes—if I could explain it! But I am far too ignorant myself—no, ignorant is not the word—too prejudiced, perhaps, to make you see it quite as it is. Perhaps I am a little too liberal, and the Saracinesca are certainly far too conservative. They mistake education for progress. Poor Don Orsino, I am sorry for him."
Donna Tullia found no other escape from the difficulty into which she had thrown herself.
"I did not know that he was to be pitied," said Maria Consuelo.
"Oh, not he in particular, perhaps," answered the stout countess, growing more and more vague. "They are all to be pitied, you know. What is to become of young men brought up in that way? The club, the turf, the card-table—to drink, to gamble, to bet, it is not an existence!"
"Do you mean that Don Orsino leads that sort of life?" inquired Maria Consuelo indifferently.
Again Donna Tullia's heavy shoulders moved contemptuously.
"What else is there for him to do?"