of their next meeting.  She had screamed, which showed that she was outraged by his boldness.  It was doubtful whether she would receive him again.  The best thing to be done, he thought, was to write her a very humble letter of apology, explaining his conduct as best he could.  This did not accord very well with his principles, but he had already transgressed them in being so excessively hasty.  Her eyes had certainly been provoking in the extreme, and it had been impossible to resist the expression on her lips.  But at all events, he should have begun by kissing her hand, which she would certainly not have withdrawn again—­then he might have put his arm round her and drawn her head to his shoulder.  These were preliminaries in the matter of kissing which it was undoubtedly right to observe, and he had culpably neglected them.  He had been abominably brutal, and he ought to apologise.  Nevertheless, he would not have forfeited the recollection of that moment for all the other recollections of his life, and he knew it.  As he walked along the street he felt a wild exhilaration such as he had never known before.  He owned gladly to himself that he loved Maria Consuelo, and resolutely thrust away the idea that his boyish vanity was pleased by the snatching of a kiss.

Whatever the real nature of his delight might be it was for the time so sincere that he even forgot to light a cigarette in order to think over the circumstances.

Walking rapidly up the Corso he came to the Piazza Colonna, and the glare of the electric light somehow recalled him to himself.

“Great speech of the Honourable Del Ferice!” yelled a newsboy in his ear.  “Ministerial crisis!  Horrible murder of a grocer!”

Orsino mechanically turned to the right in the direction of the Chambers.  Del Ferice had probably gone home, since his speech was already in print.  But fate had ordained otherwise.  Del Ferice had corrected his proofs on the spot and had lingered to talk with his friends before going home.  Not that it mattered much, for Orsino could have found him as well on the following day.  His brougham was standing in front of the great entrance and he himself was shaking hands with a tall man under the light of the lamps.  Orsino went up to him.

“Could you spare me a quarter of an hour?” asked the young man in a voice constrained by excitement.  He felt that he was embarked at last upon his great enterprise.

Del Ferice looked up in some astonishment.  He had reason to dread the quarrelsome disposition of the Saracinesca as a family, and he wondered what Orsino wanted.

“Certainly, certainly, Don Orsino,” he answered, with a particularly bland smile.  “Shall we drive, or at least sit in my carriage?  I am a little fatigued with my exertions to-day.”

The tall man bowed and strolled away, biting the end of an unlit cigar.

“It is a matter of business,” said Orsino, before entering the carriage.  “Can you help me to try my luck—­in a very small way—­in one of the building enterprises you manage?”