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.
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