At a time when most young men are making friends, Orsino had been
hindered, from the formation of such ties by the two great interests
which had absorbed his existence, his attachment and subsequent love for
Maria Consuelo, and the business at which he had worked so steadily. He
had lost Maria Consuelo, in whom he would have confided as he had often
done before, and at the present important juncture he stood quite alone.
He felt that he was no match for Del Ferice. The keen banker was making
use of him for his own purposes in a way which neither Orsino nor
Contini had ever suspected. It could not be supposed that Ugo had
foreseen from the first the advantage he might reap from the firm he had
created and which was so wholly dependent on him. Orsino might have
turned out ignorant and incapable. Contini might have proved idle and
even dishonest. But, instead of this, the experiment had succeeded
admirably and Ugo found himself possessed of an instrument, as it were,
precisely adapted to his end, which was to make worthless property
valuable at the smallest possible expense, in fact, at the lowest cost
price.
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