“Do you not like Del Ferice?” she inquired, gravely.

“Do you like him yourself?” he asked in reply.

“What a question!  Why should I like or dislike any one?” There was perhaps the smallest shade of bitterness in her voice as she asked the question she had so often asked herself.  Why should she like Giovanni Saracinesca, for instance?

“I do not know what the world would be like if we had no likes and dislikes,” said Giovanni, suddenly.  “It would be a poor place; perhaps it is only a poor place at best.  I merely wondered whether Del Ferice amused you as he amuses everybody.”

“Well then, frankly, he has not amused me to-day,” answered Corona, with a smile.

“Then you are glad he is gone?”

“I do not regret it.”

“Duchessa,” said Giovanni, suddenly changing his position, “I am glad he is gone, because I want to ask you a question.  Do I know you well enough to ask you a question?”

“It depends—­” Corona felt the blood rise suddenly to her dark forehead.  Her hands burned intensely in her gloves.  The anticipation of something she had never heard made her heart beat uncontrollably in her breast.

“It is only about myself,” continued Giovanni, in low tones.  He had seen the blush, so rare a sight that there was not another man in Rome who had seen it.  He had not time to think what it meant.  “It is only about myself,” he went on.  “My father wants me to marry; he insists that I should marry Donna Tullia—­Madame Mayer.”

“Well?” asked Corona.  She shivered; a moment before, she had been oppressed with the heat.  Her monosyllabic question was low and indistinct.  She wondered whether Giovanni could hear the beatings of her heart, so slow, so loud they almost deafened her.

“Simply this.  Do you advise me to marry her?”

“Why do you ask me, of all people?” asked Corona, faintly.

“I would like to have your advice,” said Giovanni, twisting his brown hands together and fixing his bright eyes upon her face.

“She is young yet.  She is handsome—­she is fabulously rich.  Why should you not marry her?  Would she make you happy?”

“Happy?  Happy with her?  No indeed.  Do you think life would be bearable with such a woman?”

“I do not know.  Many men would marry her if they could—­”

“Then you think I should?” asked Giovanni.  Corona hesitated; she could not understand why she should care, and yet she was conscious that there had been no such struggle in her life since the day she had blindly resolved to sacrifice herself to her father’s wishes in accepting Astrardente.  Still there could be no doubt what she should say:  how could she advise any one to marry without the prospect of the happiness she had never had?

“Will you not give me your counsel?” repeated Saracinesca.  He had grown very pale, and spoke with such earnestness that Corona hesitated no longer.