His amateur
soldiering was over long ago, but he was strong, brave and intelligent,
and if he had been convinced that a second and more radical revolution
could accomplish any good result, he would have been capable of devoting
himself to its cause with a single-heartedness not usual in these days.
But he was not convinced. He therefore lived a quiet life, making the
best of the present, improving his lands and doing his best to bring up
his sons in such a way as to give them a chance of success when the
struggle should come. Orsino was his eldest born and the results of
modern education became apparent in him first, as was inevitable.
Orsino was at this time not quite twenty-one years of age, but the
important day was not far distant and in order to leave a lasting
memorial of the attaining of his majority Prince Saracinesca had decreed
that Corona should receive a portrait of her eldest son executed by the
celebrated Anastase Gouache. To this end the young man spent three
mornings in every week in the artist's palatial studio, a place about as
different from the latter's first den in the Via San Basilio as the
Basilica of Saint Peter is different from a roadside chapel in the
Abruzzi.
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