Orsino walked slowly homeward, trying to collect his thoughts and to
reach some distinct determination with regard to the future. He was
oppressed by the sense of failure and disappointment and felt inclined
to despise himself for his weakness in yielding so easily. To all
intents and purposes he had lost Maria Consuelo, and if he had not lost
her through his own fault, he had at least tamely abandoned what had
seemed like a last chance of winning her back. As he thought of all that
had happened he tried to fix some point in the past, at which he might
have acted differently, and from which another act of consequence might
have begun. But that was not easy. Events had followed each other with a
certain inevitable logic, which only looked unreasonable because he
suspected the existence of facts beyond his certain knowledge. His great
mistake had been in going to Spicca, but nothing could have been more
natural, under the circumstances, than his appeal to Maria Consuelo's
father, nothing more unexpected than the latter's determined refusal to
help him. That there was weight in the argument used by both Spicca and
Maria Consuelo herself, he could not deny; but he failed to see why the
marriage was so utterly impossible as they both declared it to be. There
must be much more behind the visible circumstances than he could guess.
He tried to comfort himself with the assurance that he could leave Rome
on the following day, and that Spicca would not refuse to give him Maria
Consuelo's address in Paris. But the consolation he derived from the
idea was small. He found himself wondering at the recklessness shown by
the woman he loved in escaping from him. His practical Italian mind
could hardly understand how she could have changed all her plans in a
moment, abandoning her half-furnished apartment without a word of notice
even to the workmen, throwing over her intention of spending the winter
in Rome as though she had not already spent many thousands in preparing
her dwelling, and going away, probably, without as much as leaving a
representative to wind up her accounts. It may seem strange that a man
as much in love as Orsino was should think of such details at such a
moment. Perhaps he looked upon them rather as proofs that she meant to
come back after all; in any case he thought of them seriously, and even
calculated roughly the sum she would be sacrificing if she stayed away.
Beyond all he felt the dismal loneliness which a man can only feel when
he is suddenly and effectually parted from the woman he dearly loves,
and which is not like any other sensation of which the human heart is
capable.
More than once, up to the last possible moment, he was tempted to drive
to the station and leave with Maria Consuelo after all, but he would not
break the promise he had given Spicca, no matter how weak he had been in
giving it.
On reaching his home he was informed, to his great surprise, that San
Giacinto was waiting to see him. He could not remember that his cousin
had ever before honoured him with a visit and he wondered what could
have brought him now and induced him to wait, just at the hour when most
people were at dinner.
The giant was reading the evening paper, with the help of a particularly
strong cigar.
"I am glad you have come home," he said, rising and taking the young
man's outstretched hand. "I should have waited until you did."
"Has anything happened?" asked Orsino nervously. It struck him that San
Giacinto might be the bearer of some bad news about his people, and the
grave expression on the strongly marked face helped the idea.
"A great deal is happening. The crash has begun. You must get out of
your business in less than three days if you can."
Orsino drew a breath of relief at first, and then grew grave in his
turn, realising that unless matters were very serious such a man as San
Giacinto would not put himself to the inconvenience of coming. San
Giacinto was little given to offering advice unasked, still less to
interfering in the affairs of others.
"I understand," said Orsino. "You think that everything is going to
pieces. I see."
The big man looked at his young cousin with something like pity.
"If I only suspected, or thought--as you put it--that there was to be a
collapse of business, I should not have taken the trouble to warn you.
The crash has actually begun. If you can save yourself, do so at once."
"I think I can," answered the young man, bravely. But he did not at all
see how his salvation was to be accomplished. "Can you tell me a little
more definitely what is the matter? Have there been any more failures
to-day?"
"My brother-in-law Montevarchi is on the point of stopping payment,"
said San Giacinto calmly.
"Montevarchi!"
Orsino did not conceal his astonishment.
"Yes. Do not speak of it. And he is in precisely the same position, so
far as I can judge of your affairs, as you yourself, though of course he
has dealt with sums ten times as great. He will make enormous sacrifices
and will pay, I suppose, after all. But he will be quite ruined. He also
has worked with Del Fence's bank."
"And the bank refuses to discount any more of his paper?"
"Precisely. Since this afternoon."
"Then it will refuse to discount mine to-morrow."
"Have you acceptances due to-morrow?"
"Yes--not much, but enough to make the trouble. It will be Saturday,
too, and we must have money for the workmen."
"Have you not even enough in reserve for that?"
"Perhaps. I cannot tell. Besides, if the bank refuses to renew I cannot
draw a cheque."
"I am sorry for you. If I had known yesterday how near the end was, I
would have warned you."
"Thanks. I am grateful as it is. Can you give me any advice?"
Orsino had a vague idea that his rich cousin would generously propose to
help him out of his difficulties. He was not quite sure whether he could
bring himself to accept such assistance, but he more than half expected
that it would be offered. In this, however, he was completely mistaken.
San Giacinto had not the smallest intention of offering anything more
substantial than his opinion. Considering that his wife's brother's
liabilities amounted to something like five and twenty millions, this
was not surprising. The giant bit his cigar and folded his long arms
over his enormous chest, leaning back in the easy chair which creaked
under his weight.
"You have tried yourself in business by this time, Orsino," he said,
"and you know as well as I what there is to be done. You have three
modes of action open to you. You can fail. It is a simple affair enough.
The bank will take your buildings for what they will be worth a few
months hence, on the day of liquidation. There will be a big deficit,
which your father will pay for you and deduct from your share of the
division at his death. That is one plan, and seems to me the best. It is
perfectly honourable, and you lose by it. Secondly, you can go to your
father to-morrow and ask him to lend you money to meet your acceptances
and to continue the work until the houses are finished and can be sold.
They will ultimately go for a quarter of their value, if you can sell
them at all within the year, and you will be in your father's debt,
exactly as in the other case. You would avoid the publicity of a
failure, but it would cost you more, because the houses will not be
worth much more when they are finished than they are now."
"And the third plan--what is it?" inquired Orsino.
"The third way is this. You can go to Del Ferice, and if you are a
diplomatist you may persuade him that it is in his interest not to let
you fail. I do not think you will succeed, but you can try. If he agrees
it will be because he counts on your father to pay in the end, but it is
questionable whether Del Ferice's bank can afford to let out any more
cash at the present moment. Money is going to be very tight, as they
say."
Orsino smoked in silence, pondering over the situation. San Giacinto
rose.
"You are warned, at all events," he said. "You will find a great change
for the worse in the general aspect of things to-morrow."
"I am much obliged for the warning," answered Orsino. "I suppose I can
always find you if I need your advice--and you will advise me?"
"You are welcome to my advice, such as it is, my dear boy. But as for
me, I am going towards Naples to-night on business, and I may not be
back again for a day or two. If you get into serious trouble before I am
here again, you should go to your father at once. He knows nothing of
business, and has been sensible enough to keep out of it. The
consequence is that he is as rich as ever, and he would sacrifice a
great deal rather than see your name dragged into the publicity of a
failure. Good-night, and good luck to you."
Thereupon the Titan shook Orsino's hand in his mighty grip and went
away. As a matter of fact he was going down to look over one of
Montevarchi's biggest estates with a view to buying it in the coming
cataclysm, but it would not have been like him to communicate the
smallest of his intentions to Orsino, or to any one, not excepting his
wife and his lawyer.
Orsino was left to his own devices and meditations. A servant came in
and inquired whether he wished to dine at home, and he ordered strong
coffee by way of a meal. He was at the age when a man expects to find a
way out of his difficulties in an artificial excitement of the nerves.
Indeed, he had enough to disturb him, for it seemed as though all
possible misfortunes had fallen upon him at once. He had suffered on the
same day the greatest shock to his heart, and the greatest blow to his
vanity which he could conceive possible. Maria Consuelo was gone and the
failure of his business was apparently inevitable. When he tried to
review the three plans which San Giacinto had suggested, he found
himself suddenly thinking of the woman he loved and making schemes for
following her; but so soon as he had transported himself in imagination
to her side and was beginning to hope that he might win her back, he
was torn away and plunged again into the whirlpool of business at home,
struggling with unheard of difficulties and sinking deeper at every
stroke.
A hundred times he rose from his chair and paced the floor impatiently,
and a hundred times he threw himself down again, overcome by the
hopelessness of the situation. Occasionally he found a little comfort in
the reflexion that the night could not last for ever. When the day came
he would be driven to act, in one way or another, and he would be
obliged to consult his partner, Contini. Then at last his mind would be
able to follow one connected train of thought for a time, and he would
get rest of some kind.
Little by little, however, and long before the day dawned, the
dominating influence asserted itself above the secondary one and he was
thinking only of Maria Consuelo. Throughout all that night she was
travelling, as she would perhaps travel throughout all the next day and
the second night succeeding that. For she was strong and having once
determined upon the journey would very probably go to the end of it
without stopping to rest. He wondered whether she too were waking
through all those long hours, thinking of what she had left behind, or
whether she had closed her eyes and found the peace of sleep for which
he longed in vain. He thought of her face, softly lighted by the dim
lamp of the railway carriage, and fancied he could actually see it with
the delicate shadows, the subdued richness of colour, the settled look
of sadness. When the picture grew dim, he recalled it by a strong
effort, though he knew that each time it rose before his eyes he must
feel the same sharp thrust of pain, followed by the same dull wave of
hopeless misery which had ebbed and flowed again so many times since he
had parted from her.
At last he roused himself, looked about him as though he were in a
strange place, lighted a candle and betook himself to his own quarters.
It was very late, and he was more tired than he knew, for in spite of
all his troubles he fell asleep and did not awake till the sun was
streaming into the room.
Some one knocked at the door, and a servant announced that Signor
Contini was waiting to see Don Orsino. The man's face expressed a sort
of servile surprise when he saw that Orsino had not undressed for the
night and had been sleeping on the divan. He began to busy himself with
the toilet things as though expecting Orsino to take some thought for
his appearance. But the latter was anxious to see Contini at once, and
sent for him.
The architect was evidently very much disturbed. He was as pale as
though he had just recovered from a long illness and he seemed to have
grown suddenly emaciated during the night. He spoke in a low, excited
tone.
In substance he told Orsino what San Giacinto had said on the previous
evening. Things looked very black indeed, and Del Ferice's bank had
refused to discount any more of Prince Montevarchi's paper.
"And we must have money to-day," Contini concluded.
When he had finished speaking his excitement disappeared and he relapsed
into the utmost dejection. Orsino remained silent for some time and then
lit a cigarette.
"You need not be so down-hearted, Contini," he said at last. "I shall
not have any difficulty in getting money--you know that. What I feel
most is the moral failure."
"What is the moral failure to me?" asked Contini gloomily. "It is all
very well to talk of getting money. The bank will shut its tills like a
steel trap and to-day is Saturday, and there are the workmen and others
to be paid, and several bills due into the bargain. Of course your
family can give you millions--in time. But we need cash to-day. That is
the trouble."
"I suppose the state telegraph is not destroyed because Prince
Montevarchi cannot meet his acceptances," observed Orsino. "And I
imagine that our steward here in the house has enough cash for our
needs, and will not hesitate to hand it to me if he receives a telegram
from my father ordering him to do so. Whether he has enough to take up
the bills or not, I do not know; but as to-day is Saturday we have all
day to-morrow to make arrangements. I could even go out to Saracinesca
and be back on Monday morning when the bank opens."
"You seem to take a hopeful view."
"I have not the least hope of saving the business. But the question of
ready money does not of itself disturb me."
This was undoubtedly true, but it was also undeniable that Orsino now
looked upon the prospect of failure with more equanimity than on the
previous evening. On the other hand he felt even more keenly than before
all the pain of his sudden separation from Maria Consuelo. When a man is
assailed, by several misfortunes at once, twenty-four hours are
generally enough to sift the small from the great and to show him
plainly which is the greatest of all.
"What shall we do this morning?" inquired Contini.
"You ask the question as though you were going to propose a picnic,"
answered Orsino. "I do not see why this morning need be so different
from other mornings."
"We must stop the works instantly--"
"Why? At all events we will change nothing until we find out the real
state of business. The first thing to be done is to go to the bank as
usual on Saturdays. We shall then know exactly what to do."
Contini shook his head gloomily and went away to wait in another room
while Orsino dressed. An hour later they were at the bank. Contini grew
paler than ever. The head clerk would of course inform them that no more
bills would be discounted, and that they must meet those already out
when they fell due. He would also tell them that the credit balance of
their account current would not be at their disposal until their
acceptances were met. Orsino would probably at last believe that the
situation was serious, though he now looked so supremely and scornfully
indifferent to events.
They waited some time. Several men were engaged in earnest conversation,
and their faces told plainly enough that they were in trouble. The head
clerk was standing with them, and made a sign to Orsino, signifying that
they would soon go. Orsino watched him. From time to time he shook his
head and made gestures which indicated his utter inability to do
anything for them. Contini's courage sank lower and lower.
"I will ask for Del Ferice at once," said Orsino.
He accordingly sought out one of the men who wore the bank's livery and
told him to take his card to the count.
"The Signor Commendatore is not coming this morning," answered the man
mysteriously.
Orsino went back to the head clerk, interrupting his conversation with
the others. He inquired if it were true that Del Ferice were not coming.
"It is not probable," answered the clerk with a grave face. "They say
that the Signora Contessa is not likely to live through the day."
"Is Donna Tullia ill?" asked Orsino in considerable astonishment.
"She returned from Naples yesterday morning, and was taken ill in the
afternoon--it is said to be apoplexy," he added in a low voice. "If you
will have patience Signor Principe, I will be at your disposal in five
minutes."
Orsino was obliged to be satisfied and sat down again by Contini. He
told him the news of Del Ferice's wife.
"That will make matters worse," said Contini.
"It will not improve them," answered Orsino indifferently. "Considering
the state of affairs I would like to see Del Ferice before speaking with
any of the others."
"Those men are all involved with Prince Montevarchi," observed Contini,
watching the group of which the head clerk was the central figure. "You
can see by their faces what they think of the business. The short, grey
haired man is the steward--the big man is the architect. The others are
contractors. They say it is not less than thirty millions."
Orsino said nothing. He was thinking of Maria Consuelo and wishing that
he could get away from Rome that night, while admitting that there was
no possibility of such a thing. Meanwhile the head clerk's gestures to
his interlocutors expressed more and more helplessness. At last they
went out in a body.
"And now I am at your service, Signor Principe," said the grave man of
business coming up to Orsino and Contini. "The usual accommodation, I
suppose? We will just look over the bills and make out the new ones. It
will not take ten minutes. The usual cash, I suppose, Signor Principe?
Yes, to-day is Saturday and you have your men to pay. Quite as usual,
quite as usual. Will you come into my office?"
Orsino looked at Contini, and Contini looked at Orsino, grasping the
back of a chair to steady himself.
"Then there is no difficulty about discounting?" stammered Contini,
turning his face, now suddenly flushed, towards the clerk.
"None whatever," answered the latter with an air of real or affected
surprise. "I have received the usual instructions to let Andrea Contini
and Company have all the money they need."
He turned and led the way to his private office. Contini walked
unsteadily. Orsino showed no astonishment, but his black eyes grew a
little brighter than usual as he anticipated his next interview with San
Giacinto. He readily attributed his good fortune to the supposed
well-known prosperity of the firm, and he rose in his own estimation. He
quite forgot that Contini, who had now lost his head, had but yesterday
clearly foreseen the future when he had said that Del Ferice would not
let the two partners fail until they had fitted the last door and the
last window in the last of their houses. The conclusion had struck him
as just at the time. Contini was the first to recall it.
"It will turn out, as I said," he began, when they were driving to their
office in a cab after leaving the bank. "He will let us live until we
are worth eating."
"We will arrange matters on a firmer basis before that," answered Orsino
confidently. "Poor old Donna Tullia! Who would have thought that she
could die! I will stop and ask for news as we pass."
He stopped the cab before the gilded gate of the detached house.
Glancing up, he saw that the shutters were closed. The porter came to
the bars but did not show any intention of opening.
"The Signora Contessa is dead," he said solemnly, in answer to Orsino's
inquiry.
"This morning?"
"Two hours ago."
Orsino's face grew grave as he left his card of condolence and turned
away. He could hardly have named a person more indifferent to him than
poor Donna Tullia, but he could not help feeling an odd regret at the
thought that she was gone at last with all her noisy vanity, her
restless meddlesomeness and her perpetual chatter. She had not been old
either, though he called her so, and there had seemed to be still a
superabundance of life in her. There had been yet many years of
rattling, useless, social life before her. To-morrow she would have
taken her last drive through Rome--out through the gate of Saint
Lawrence to the Campo Varano, there to wait many years perhaps for the
pale and half sickly Ugo, of whom every one had said for years that he
could not live through another twelve month with the disease of the
heart which threatened him. Of late, people had even begun to joke about
Donna Tullia's third husband. Poor Donna Tullia!
Orsino went to his office with Contini and forced himself through the
usual round of work. Occasionally he was assailed by a mad desire to
leave Rome at once, but he opposed it and would not yield. Though his
affairs had gone well beyond his expectation the present crisis made it
impossible to abandon his business, unless he could get rid of it
altogether. And this he seriously contemplated. He knew however, or
thought he knew, that Contini would be ruined without him. His own name
was the one which gave the paper its value and decided Del Ferice to
continue the advances of money. The time was past when Contini would
gladly have accepted his partner's share of the undertaking, and would
even have tried to raise funds to purchase it. To retire now would be
possible only if he could provide for the final liquidation of the
whole, and this he could only do by applying to his father or mother, in
other words by acknowledging himself completely beaten in his struggle
for independence.
The day ended at last and was succeeded by the idleness of Sunday. A
sort of listless indifference came over Orsino, the reaction, no doubt,
after all the excitement through which he had passed. It seemed to him
that Maria Consuelo had never loved him, and that it was better after
all that she should be gone. He longed for the old days, indeed, but as
she now appeared to him in his meditations he did not wish her back. He
had no desire to renew the uncertain struggle for a love which she
denied in the end; and this mood showed, no doubt, that his own passion
was less violent than he had himself believed. When a man loves with his
whole nature, undividedly, he is not apt to submit to separations
without making a strong effort to reunite himself, by force, persuasion
or stratagem, with the woman who is trying to escape from him. Orsino
was conscious of having at first felt the inclination to make such an
attempt even more strongly than he had shown it, but he was conscious
also that the interval of two days had been enough to reduce the wish to
follow Maria Consuelo in such a way that he could hardly understand
having ever entertained it.
Unsatisfied passion wears itself out very soon. The higher part of love
may and often does survive in such cases, and the passionate impulses
may surge up after long quiescence as fierce and dangerous as ever. But
it is rarely indeed that two unsatisfied lovers who have parted by the
will of the one or of both can meet again without the consciousness that
the experimental separation has chilled feelings once familiar and
destroyed illusions once more than dear. In older times, perhaps, men
and women loved differently. There was more solitude in those days than
now, for what is called society was not invented, and people generally
were more inclined to sadness from living much alone. Melancholy is a
great strengthener of faithfulness in love. Moreover at that time the
modern fight for life had not begun, men as a rule had few interests
besides love and war, and women no interests at all beyond love. We
moderns should go mad if we were suddenly forced to lead the lives led
by knights and ladies in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The
monotonous round of such an existence in time of peace would make idiots
of us, the horrors of that old warfare would make many of us maniacs.
But it is possible that youths and maidens would love more faithfully
and wait longer for each other than they will or can to-day. It is
questionable whether Bayard would have understood a single page of a
modern love story, Tancred would certainly not have done so; but Caesar
would have comprehended our lives and our interests without effort, and
Catullus could have described us as we are, for one great civilization
is very like another where the same races are concerned.
In the days which followed Maria Consuelo's departure, Orsino came to a
state of indifference which surprised himself. He remembered that when
she had gone away in the spring he had scarcely missed her, and that he
had not thought his own coldness strange, since he was sure that he had
not loved her then. But that he had loved her now, during her last stay
in Rome, he was sure, and he would have despised himself if he had not
been able to believe that he loved her still. Yet, if he was not glad
that she had quitted him, he was at least strangely satisfied at being
left alone, and the old fancy for analysis made him try to understand
himself. The attempt was fruitless, of course, but it occupied his
thoughts.
He met Spicca in the street, and avoided him. He imagined that the old
man must despise him for not having resisted and followed Maria Consuelo
after all. The hypothesis was absurd and the conclusion vain, but he
could not escape the idea, and it annoyed him. He was probably ashamed
of not having acted recklessly, as a man should who is dominated by a
master passion, and yet he was inwardly glad that he had not been
allowed to yield to the first impulse.
The days succeeded each other and a week passed away, bringing Saturday
again and the necessity for a visit to the bank. Business had been in a
very bad state since it had been known that Montevarchi was ruined. So
far, he had not stopped payment and although the bank refused discount
he had managed to find money with which to meet his engagements.
Probably, as San Giacinto had foretold, he would pay everything and
remain a very poor man indeed. But, although many persons knew this,
confidence was not restored. Del Ferice declared that he believed
Montevarchi solvent, as he believed every one with whom his bank dealt
to be solvent to the uttermost centime, but that he could lend no more
money to any one on any condition whatsoever, because neither he nor the
bank had any to lend. Every one, he said, had behaved honestly, and he
proposed to eclipse the honesty of every one by the frank acknowledgment
of his own lack of cash. He was distressed, he said, overcome by the
sufferings of his friends and clients, ready to sell his house, his
jewelry and his very boots, in the Roman phrase, to accommodate every
one; but he was conscious that the demand far exceeded any supply which
he could furnish, no matter at what personal sacrifice, and as it was
therefore impossible to help everybody, it would be unjust to help a
few where all were equally deserving.
In the meanwhile he proved the will of his deceased wife, leaving him
about four and a half millions of francs unconditionally, and half a
million more to be devoted to some public charity at Ugo's discretion,
for the repose of Donna Tullia's unquiet spirit. It is needless to say
that the sorrowing husband determined to spend the legacy magnificently
in the improvement of the town represented by him in parliament. A part
of the improvement would consist in a statue of Del Ferice
himself--representing him, perhaps, as he had escaped from Rome, in the
garb of a Capuchin friar, but with the addition of an army revolver to
show that he had fought for Italian unity, though when or where no man
could tell. But it is worth noting that while he protested his total
inability to discount any one's bills, Andrea Contini and Company
regularly renewed their acceptances when due and signed new ones for any
amount of cash they required. The accommodation was accompanied with a
request that it should not be mentioned. Orsino took the money
indifferently enough, conscious that he had three fortunes at his back
in case of trouble, but Contini grew more nervous as time went on and
the sums on paper increased in magnitude, while the chances of disposing
of the buildings seemed reduced to nothing in the stagnation which had
already set in.