"By this time the conviction must have
formed itself in your mind that I was never going. The unforeseen
happens. I go."
Maria Consuelo would have been glad if he had stayed even longer, for he
amused her and interested her, and she did not look forward with
pleasure to the lonely evening she was to spend in the hotel.
"I am generally at home at this hour," she said, giving him her hand.
"Then, if you will allow me? Thanks. Good evening, Madame."
Their eyes met for a moment, and then Orsino left the room. As he lit
his cigarette in the porch of the hotel, he said to himself that he had
not wasted his hour, and he was pleasantly conscious of tha inward and
spiritual satisfaction which every very young man feels when he is aware
of having appeared at his best in the society of a woman alone. Youth
without vanity is only premature old age after all.
"She is certainly more than pretty," he said to himself, affecting to be
critical when he was indeed convinced. "Her mouth is fabulous, but it is
well shaped and the rest is perfect--no, the nose is insignificant, and
one of those yellow eyes wanders a little.
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