"Maria Potensi has a passion for jewels, as a child might have for toys, and she accepts them in the same way. She tells every one about it quite frankly; in that lies the proof of her innocence."

But the Contessa Zoya showed neither sympathy nor credulity, and there was no misinterpreting her meaning as she said:

"It is true, Princess, you know the Potensi well, and I only slightly—but if my husband offered a diamond ornament——"

"He would never give her another! Is that it?" put in Tornik.

"No—nor any one!" The intensity of her tone alarmed Nina, who was beginning to feel confused by the succession of violent impressions. Scorpa, Giovanni, Carpazzi, Zoya Olisco, all struck such strident notes that their vibrations jangled.

Another act and entr'acte passed. Nina saw Giovanni enter the box of the Contessa Potensi. In contrast to her greeting across the house, she seemed now scarcely to speak to him. He talked to her companion, the Princess Malio, who bobbed her head and prattled at a great rate; but as he left the box Nina saw him lean toward the Contessa Potensi as though saying something in an undertone. She answered rapidly, behind her fan. Giovanni inclined his head and left.

This small incident made a greater impression on Nina than its importance warranted. And the Contessa Potensi occupied her thoughts far more than the various men who had come into the box, and who seemed little more than so many varieties of faces and shirt-fronts. She noticed that many of the older men wore Father Abraham beards and clothes several sizes too big. On account of the Court Ball those who had orders wore them, frequently so carelessly pinned to their coats that the decorations seemed likely to fall off. The Marchese Valdeste—a really imposing man—had two huge ones dangling from the flapping lapel of his coat, and a sash with a bow on the hip that would put any man's dignity to a supreme test.

"The ballet is very important to-night," Nina heard the marchese saying to the Princess Sansevero. "La Favorita is to appear in the Birth of Venus. She does another dance first—a Spanish one, I think."

As he spoke, the ballet music had already begun, and the Spanish coryphees were twisting and bowing, and straightening their spines as they danced to the beat of their castanettes. Then they moved aside for the ballerina.

It may have been intended as a Spanish dance, or Eastern, or gypsy—but it was more likely a dance of La Favorita's own imagination. She appeared clad in a thin slip of transparent and jetted gauze. Upon her feet were socks and ballet slippers of black satin. A black mask covered the upper part of her face, and her black hair was drawn high and held with a diamond bracelet; she wore a diamond collar, long diamond earrings, and the gauze of her upper garment—which could hardly be called a bodice—was held on one shoulder with a band of diamonds. For the space of a second she faced the audience, standing still and rigid; then, with a quiver, the rigidity was shattered! A serpent's coiling was not more swift than the movement of her dazzling, glittering form, which twirled and turned and bent, while the twinkling rapidity of her steps was faster than the eye could follow. A twirl, another twirl, a flash—and she was gone.



The coryphees, who had seemingly danced well before, were now so awkward by comparison that Nina and Tornik laughed aloud.

"They look like cows," commented Tornik.

"Or nailed to the ground," Nina rejoined. She leaned forward, eager for Favorita's reappearance.

To make a background for the second dance, the stage hands had moved in folding wings or screens of sea green. The calciums had gradually been turning to the blue of moonlight, and now, at the back of the stage, Venus arose, veiled in a mist of foam.

Seeming scarcely to touch her feet to the ground, the dancer was a puff of the foam itself, a living fragment of green and white spray. She caught her arms full of the sea-colored gauze, like a great billow above her head, and then with a swirl she bent her body and drew the diaphanous film out sideways, like a wave that had run up on the sands. Drawing it together again, she seemed to produce another breaker.

So perfectly was the fabric handled that it seemed exactly like the spray of the sea, which, in its freshness, clung to her, and at the last, by a wonderful illusion, she gave the appearance of having gone under the waves.

For several seconds the house remained absolutely hushed, and in that moment Nina found herself vaguely groping through a confusion of ecstatic, yet slightly shocked, sensations. She wondered whether La Favorita had really nothing on except a number of yards of tulle which she held in her hands.

But the verdict of the audience was voiced by a torrent of bravos and handclappings that thundered until La Favorita, having thrown a long mantle about her, came out into the glare of the footlights.

She bowed and kissed her hands, her smiles of acknowledgment sweeping the house from left to right, but at the box of the Sanseveros her smile faded, and she threw back her head with a movement of triumph.

Nina was startled into fancying that she looked long, directly, and particularly at her.



CHAPTER XII

A BALL AT COURT

The Sansevero party left the opera shortly after ten o'clock, and a little while later drove into the courtyard of the Quirinal. Entering a side door, they ascended a long staircase, upon each step of which was stationed a royal cuirassier, all resplendent in embroidered coats, polished high boots, and veritable Greek helmets, which seemed to add still further to their unusual height. Between their immovable ranks the guests thronged up the stairway to the Cuirassiers' Hall. Here, at the long benches provided for the purpose, they left their wraps in charge of innumerable flunkies in the royal livery—which consists of a red coat, embroidered either in gold or in silver, powdered hair, blue plush breeches, and pink stockings.

Nina followed her aunt and uncle through an antechamber into the throne room and beyond again into the vast yellow sala di ballo. Here also the cuirassiers, who were stationed everywhere, added a martial dignity to the splendor of the scene. The people were all massed against the sides of the room; and although certain important personages had seats upon the long red silk benches placed in set rows, the great majority of those present stood, and stood, and stood. In contrast to her weary waiting at the afternoon reception when, a few days before, she had been presented at court, Nina found so much to interest her to-night that she did not remark the time. One side of the room was quite empty save for the big gilt chair reserved for the Queen, and the stools grouped around it for ladies in waiting. Three especial stools were placed at the left of the queen for the three "collaresses"—those whose husbands held the highest order in Italy, the Grand Collar of the Annunciation.

It was the most brilliant gathering that Nina had ever seen, chiefly made so by the gold-embroidered uniforms and court orders of the men. The dresses and jewels of the women differed very little from those seen at social functions elsewhere. With a rare exception, such as the Duchessa Astarte and the Princess Vessano, whose toilettes were the most chic imaginable, the great ladies of Italy followed fashions very little. Not that Nina found them dowdy—far from it: they had a distinction of their own, which, like that of their ancient palaces, seemed to remain superior to modern decrees of fashion. Nearly all of them had lovely figures, which they did not strive to force into newly prescribed outlines.

A remark that a foreigner in New York had made to Nina came back to her, and she now realized its truth. It was that the one great difference between the women of Europe and those of America was that in Europe one noticed the women, while in America too often one noticed merely the clothes. The Roman ladies wore plain princesse dresses, the majority of velvet or brocade, and with little or no trimming save enormous jewels often clumsily set, but barbarically magnificent.

Here and there, to Nina's intense interest, she found, strangely mingled with the others, people of the provinces, who, because of distinguished names, had the right to appear at court, yet who looked as though they were wearing evening dress for the first time in their lives. Near by, for instance, was a lady whose rotund person was buttoned into a tight-fitting red velvet basque of ancient cut, above a skirt of pink satin. A court train, evidently constructed out of curtain material, was suspended from her shoulders. Broad gold bracelets clasped her plump wrists at the point where her gloves terminated, and a high comb of Etruscan gold ornamented the hard knob into which her hair was screwed.

Princess Vessano represented the other extreme—that of fashion. She was in an Empire "creation" of green liberty satin with an over-tunic of silver-embroidered gauze. Her hair was arranged in a fillet of diamonds, which joined a small banded coronet, also of diamonds, set with three enormous emeralds. Around her throat she had a narrow band of green velvet bordered with diamonds and with a pendant emerald in the center that matched pear-shaped earrings nearly an inch long. Yet in a crowd of three thousand persons neither the grotesque lady nor the princess was remarkable.

The crush of people became greater and greater until it seemed impossible to admit another person without filling the center of the ballroom and the royal space. As there was no music, the chatter of voices made an insistent humming din. At last! the Prefetto di Palazzo sounded three loud strokes, with the ferule of his mace, upon the floor, the sound of voices ceased, the doors into the royal apartments were thrown open, the band struck up the royal march, and their Majesties entered, followed by the members of their suite. Every one made a deep reverence, and the Queen seated herself upon the gold chair. The King stood at her left. As soon as the Queen had taken her place, the dancing commenced, led by the Prefetto di Palazzo and the French ambassadress. But as a wide space before the Queen's chair was reserved out of deference to their Majesties, the rest of the ballroom was so crowded that dancing was next to impossible. Presently the King made a tour of the room—followed always by two gentlemen of his suite, with whom he stopped continually to ask who this person or that might be, sometimes speaking to special guests.

The Queen likewise singled out certain strangers of distinction. In this way she sent for a United States senator, who was making a short visit in Rome, and kept him talking with her for a considerable time. Her Majesty sat through the first waltz and quadrille. Then she and the King promenaded slowly through the assemblage, speaking to many people as they passed. Some careless foot went through Nina's dress, tearing a great rent, just as she made her reverence to their Majesties, who were approaching. The Queen smiled sympathetically and held out her hand for Nina to kiss, at the same time exclaiming her sympathy, then, quite at length, her admiration for the lovely dress. Nina flushed with pleasure, feeling that the damage to her prettiest frock had been more than repaid.

Giovanni was standing with Nina at the time, and after their Majesties had passed, he looked quizzically at the torn hem that Nina held in her hand. "Is it altogether spoiled?"

Nina laughed. "If I were sentimental, I should keep it always in tatters in memory of the Queen!"

"But as you are not sentimental—I hope it can be mended. May I tell you that her Majesty's admiration was well deserved? It is a most charming costume and not too elaborate. The touch of silver in the dress is just enough to go with the silver fillet over your hair. White is seldom becoming to blondes, but it suits you admirably."

She looked up, frankly pleased. "It is nice, really? I am so glad!" She was perfectly happy, and her smile showed it. The whole evening had been delightful. The disagreeable impressions made by the Contessa Potensi and Favorita were forgotten as she danced with Giovanni, who performed a feat of rare ability in finding a passage through the crush.

Presently he said to her, "When their Majesties have gone into an adjoining room, then the rest of us can go to supper."

As he spoke, Nina saw them disappear through the doorway. "Are they not coming back?" she asked.

"No. They have gone."

"But do they never dance?"

"Never! Queen Margherita and King Humbert always opened the ball by the quadrille d'honneur, with the ambassadors and important court ladies and gentlemen. But the present King abolished all that."

At the end of the waltz Tornik managed to find Nina and announced supper. In the stampede for food there was such a crush that people stepped on her slippers and literally swept up the floor with her train. Tornik, being a giant, and able to reach over any number of smaller persons, finally secured a pate and an ice. Standing near her, two young men were stuffing cakes and sandwiches into their pockets. Amazed, she drew Tornik's attention. He shrugged his shoulders. "Who are they?" she whispered. "Princes, for all I know," was his rejoinder. "Poor devils, many of them never get such a feast as this."



CHAPTER XIII

CORONETS FOR SALE

According to Italian etiquette, strangers must leave cards within twenty-four hours upon every person to whom they have been introduced. Therefore the afternoon of the day following the ball was necessarily spent by Nina in three hours of steady driving from house to house. Finally, as she and the princess were alighting at the Palazzo Sansevero, Count Tornik drove into the courtyard, and together they mounted to the apartments used by the family.

Nina settled herself in the corner of a sofa, pulling off her gloves. Tornik dropped into a loose-jointed heap in a big chair opposite. Suddenly he sat up straight, his eyebrows lifted.

"I did not know!" he said. "May I felicitate you, mademoiselle?"

"On what?" she asked, puzzled.

"Since you wear a ring, it is evident that your engagement is to be announced. Will you tell me who is the fortunate man?"

She saw that he was gazing at the emerald she wore on her little finger. "Is there reason to think I am engaged—because of this?"

"Certainly, what else? A young girl's wearing a ring can mean but one thing."

"On my little finger? How ridiculous! My father gave it to me. Sometimes, at home, I wear several rings. Does that mean I am engaged to several men?"

"Then you are still free?"

He hesitated as though under an impulse to say something sentimental, then apparently changed his mind, and relapsed into his habitually detached indifference of manner.

"They have curious customs in your country," he said casually. "A friend of mine was in America last year. He told me many things!"

"Did he? What, for instance?"

"He said that the women sat in chairs that balanced back and forth——"

"Chairs that——" she interrupted. "Oh, you mean rocking-chairs! That's true, you don't have them over here, do you? I did not mean to interrupt. You said we rock——"

"Not you, it's the older women who balance all day on verandas, and let their daughters do whatever they please! In an American family, I am told, the young girl is supreme ruler. Is that true?"

Nina, laughing, shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know—I never thought about it! But over here I suppose a girl does not count at all? Tell me, according to your ideas, what her place should be."

"Oh, I do not say should. I merely state the fact: over here, a young girl plays a very small role. But then, for the matter of that, most people belong naturally in the background, and very few, whether they are women or men, have their names on the program."

"And you? What part do you play?"

For a moment his eyes gleamed. "That depends upon whether fate shall cast me to support a diva or to occupy an empty stage."

"And if fate allowed you to choose, I could easily imagine that you would prefer a part with very little action and as few lines as possible."

"You are quite wrong. I do not object to saying all that a part calls for, and, above all, I like action."

"That's true; I had forgotten! You are a soldier! I wonder why you went into the army?"

"It is the only career open to me."

Nina was thinking of Giovanni and his point of view as she asked, "Why are you not content to be merely Count Tornik?"

"You mean that I, like Carpazzi, should live on the illustriousness of my name? If I were very poor, perhaps I should."

"How curious!" Nina exclaimed. "Does not a career mean making money?"

"On the contrary, it means spending it! One must have a great deal of money to go to any height in diplomacy."

"Then you are rich?" Nina already had acquired a brutal frankness of direct interrogation through her Italian sojourn.

"Not exactly." He looked bored again. "But I have a little—though perhaps not enough for my ambition. If only there were a serious war, I'd have a good chance." Then he added simply, "I am a good soldier!"

The princess, who had been summoned to the telephone, now returned and seated herself beside Nina on the sofa. "I have just been talking with the Marchesa Valdeste, and she told me that the Queen said most gracious things of you, dear; called you the 'charming little American.'" The prince entered while the princess was speaking. He kissed his wife's hand and began, at great length, to tell her exactly where and how he had spent the afternoon. After a while, however, as one or two other friends dropped in, Sansevero talked aside with Tornik.

"You were not at Savini's last night, were you?" he asked.

Tornik looked interested. "No," he said, "but I hear they had a very high game."

"Yes. Young Allegro was practically cleaned out."

"Who won?"

"Who, indeed, but Scorpa! He has the luck, that man!"

"Were you there? I thought you never played any more; have you taken it up again?"

Sansevero, glancing apprehensively at his wife, answered quickly, "I never play." Fortunately, just then the dangerous conversation was ended by the arrival of the Contessa Potensi. She smiled graciously upon the prince as he pressed her hand to his lips, and bestowed the left-over remnant of the same smile, upon Tornik. She also kissed the air on either side of the princess with much affection, and shook hands cordially with two other ladies who were present, but she directed toward Nina the barest glance.

She and Nina, by the way, furnished at the moment a typical illustration of the difference in appearance between European and American women.

The contessa was wearing an untrimmed, black tailor-made costume with a very long train, a little fur toque to match a small neck piece, and a little sausage-shaped muff. Her diamond earrings were enormous, but not very good stones. Nina's dress was of raspberry cloth, cut in the latest exaggeration of fashion—her skirt was short and skimp as her hat was huge. Her muff of sables as big and soft as a pillow—she could easily have buried her arms in it to the shoulder. The elaborateness of Nina's clothes filled the contessa with satisfaction, for she thought them barbarously inappropriate, and she knew that Giovanni was a martinet so far as "fitness" went.

Presently, in spite of her more than rude greeting, she coolly sat down beside Nina. "Will you make me a cup of tea? I like it without sugar and with very little cream." She did not smile, and she did not say "please." Her bearing was a fair example of the cold, impersonal insolence of which Italian women of fashion are capable when antagonistic.

After a time she leaned over and scrutinized Nina's watch, as though it were in a show case. "Do many young girls in America wear jewels?"

Nina found herself congealing; instead of answering, she handed the contessa her tea, and expressed a hope that she had not put in too much cream.

Taking no notice of Nina's evasion, the contessa, talking indiscriminately about people, arrived finally at the subject of Giovanni. In her opinion, the Marchese di Valdo ought to marry money! Unfortunately, however, she feared he had loved too many women to be capable now of caring for one alone. From this she went to generalities. A man had but one grand passion in a lifetime, didn't Nina think so?

Nina's thoughts were very hazy, indeed, about grand passions, which were associated dimly in her mind with the seven deadly sins—in the category of things one didn't speak of. So she answered vaguely, feeling like a stupid child being cross-examined by the school commissioner.

"Still, he is very attractive, don't you find? Of course, he says the same things to all of us—but then no one understands how to make love as well as he, so what does it matter whether he means it or not? It takes a woman of great experience," insinuated the contessa, "to parry Giovanni's fencing with the foils of love."

Nina was goaded into answering. "You seem to know a great deal about his love-making," she said at last, with the breathy calm of controlled temper.

Half shutting her eyes, the contessa replied: "It is common hearsay. One has only to follow the list of his conquests to know that he must be a past master in the art of making women care for him. That he is fickle is evident; he is constantly changing his attentions from one woman to another, and leaving with a crisis of the heart her whom he has lately adored. I am sorry for the woman he marries—still, perhaps she would not know the difference! He might even be devoted, from force of habit."

Nina, furious, told herself that she did not believe one word that this spiteful woman was saying, but it made an impression all the same, which was, of course, exactly what the contessa wanted.

"Tornik, too, needs a fortune badly," Maria Potensi went on piercing neatly. "It is hard, over here with us, that men acquire fortunes only by marriage. In America, it must be better, for there they can earn their money, and marry for love."

Nina felt her cheeks burn as she listened, but there was nothing she could say. She knew only too well how hard it would be to believe herself loved.

But not all of the women were like the Contessa Potensi, and by the time Nina had been a month in Rome, she had, with the responsiveness of youth, formed several friendships that were rapidly drifting into intimacies, though she chose as her associates, for the most part, young married women rather than girls. Her particular friend was Zoya Olisco, really six months younger than herself, but of a precocious worldly experience that gave her at least ten years' advantage.

The young girls were to Nina quite incomprehensible. Their curiously negative behavior in public, their self-conscious diffidence, seemed to her stupid; but their education filled her with envy and shame. Nearly all spoke several languages, not in her own fashion of broken French, broken German, and baby-talk Italian, but with perfect facility and correctness of grammar. Nearly all were thoroughly grounded in mathematics, history, literature, and science. And yet their whole attitude toward life seemed out of balance; they were like pedagogues never out of the schoolroom—one moment discoursing learnedly, the next prattling like little children. The end and aim of life to them was marriage. Each talked of her dot and of what it might buy her in the way of a husband, very much as girls in America might plan the spending of their Christmas money.

In spite of the unusual liberty allowed Nina, as an American, it seemed to her that she was very restricted. She had, for instance, suggested that they ask Carpazzi to dine with them alone and go to the opera. But the princess had said, "Impossible. Carpazzi, finding no one but the family, would naturally suppose we wish to arrange a marriage between you."

Marry Carpazzi! It was ridiculous; she never had heard of such customs! "Well, then, why not ask Tornik?" she suggested. "He is not an Italian." The princess demurred. It might be possible to ask Tornik—still it was better not. Unless Nina wanted to marry Tornik? Apparently there was little use in pursuing this subject further, so she laughed and gave it up.

They were in the princess's room, at the time, and Nina, dressed for the street, was pulling on new gloves of fawn-colored suede. Her brown velvet and fox furs, her big hat with a fox band fastened with an osprey, were all that the modeste's art could achieve.

The princess fastened a little yellow mink collar around her throat over her black cloth dress, selected the better of two pairs of cleaned white kid gloves, picked up her hard, round, little yellow muff, and then went over and sat on the sofa beside Nina. "By the way, darling, I have something to say to you. The Marchese Valdeste has approached your uncle in regard to a marriage between his son Carlo and you. Not being an Italian, I suppose you want to give your answer yourself. What do you say?"

"What do I say!" Nina's eyes and mouth opened together. "Why, I have never seen the man!"

The princess smiled. "The offer is made in the same way in which it would be if you were an Italian. Your parents not being here, I ask you in their stead—or as I might ask you if you were a widow. To begin, then,—no, I am perfectly in earnest—I am authorized to offer you a young man of unquestionable birth. He has in his own right three castles. Two will need a great deal of repair, but one is in excellent condition and contains three hundred rooms, more than half of which are furnished. He has an annual income of twenty thousand lire and no—debts! That he is fairly good-looking, medium-sized, has black hair and brown eyes, and is said to have a very amiable disposition, are details."

As the princess concluded, Nina added: "And he has also a most charming mother. My answer is—my regret that I cannot marry her instead."

"You are sure you do not care to consider this offer?"

Nina looked steadily into her aunt's eyes. "I am sure you married Uncle Sandro through no such courtship as this!"

"I did not think you would accept, my dear child; yet such marriages often turn out for the best—at least it was my duty to ask for your answer. You have given it—and now let us go out. The carriage has been waiting some time."

Shortly afterward they were in the Pincio—for the custom still prevails among Roman ladies and gentlemen of slowly driving up and down or standing for a chat with friends. The dome of St. Peter's looked like a globe of gold set in the center of the celebrated frame of the Pincio trees, but as the sun went down it grew chilly, and the Sansevero landau rolled briskly up the Corso. At Nina's suggestion they stopped at a tea shop.

No sooner were they seated at a little table when they were joined by the Duchess Astarte. The duchess had most graceful manners, but she talked to the princess across Nina, and about her, as though she were an article of furniture, or at least a small child who could not understand what was said. She spoke frankly of Nina's suitors. Scorpa's was an excellent title, but Scorpa was a widower and no longer young. Then she begged the princess to consider her nephew, the young Prince Allegro.

It would be a brilliant match, for he was one of the mediatized princes and ranked with royalty. But his properties took such an immense amount of money to keep up that an added fortune would be a great relief to the whole family. Her consummate naturalness did away with much of the bluntness of her speech; but even so, this was too much for Nina's calmness.

"But, Duchessa," she broke in, "have the Prince Allegro and I nothing to do with the arranging of our own future?"

The duchess observed her in as much astonishment as though a baby of six months had broken into the conversation. A moment or two elapsed before she said smoothly: "Oh, the Prince is enchanted at the idea. He danced with you at Court and finds you molto simpatica. It is a great name, my dear, that he has to offer you——" and then with a condescension, yet a courteousness that prevented offense: "We shall all be willing, nay, delighted, to receive you with open arms. Your position will be in every way as though you had been born into the nobility."

"Thank you," said Nina quietly, "but I don't think I am quite used to the European marriage of arrangement."

"Ah, but it need not be a marriage of arrangement. If you will permit Allegro to pay his addresses to you, he will consider himself the most fortunate of men. May I tell him?"

"Please not!" said Nina. Quite at bay, she longed wildly for some means of escape. To her relief, two Americans whom she knew, young Mrs. Davis and her sister, entered the shop. Nina rose abruptly, apologizing to the duchess, and ran to them. How long had they been in Rome? Where were they stopping? What was the news from New York? They told her all they could think of. The Tony Stuarts had a son—they thought it the only baby that had ever been born; and as for old Mr. Stuart, he was nearly insane with joy. Billy Rivers had lost every cent of his money; and then—but, of course, Nina had heard about John Derby.

In her fear that some accident had happened to him, Nina's heart seemed to miss two beats. But Mrs. Davis merely meant his success in mining. By the way, she had seen him in New York, as she was driving to the steamer. He was striding up Fifth Avenue, and was "too good-looking for words."

The princess was leaving the shop and, as Nina followed her into the carriage, her mind was full of Derby. It was very strange—she had had a letter the day before from Arizona, in which John had said nothing about going to New York. Then she remembered that her father had hinted at a possibility that John might be sent to Italy later in the winter. Her pulse quickened at the thought, but with no consciousness of sentiment deepened or changed by absence.

Arrived at the palace, she found a note from Zoya Olisco, who was coming to spend the next day with her. Nina handed the note to the princess. "I thought we could go out in the car and lunch somewhere. Or is it not allowed?" Her eyes twinkled as she questioned.

"That depends," the princess answered in the same spirit, "upon whether you are counting upon including me. I am a very disagreeable tyrant when it comes to being left out of a party."

The automobile in question was Nina's. She had wanted one, and with her "to want" meant "to get." Nearly every one thought it belonged to the princess, as it would not have occurred to many in Rome to suppose it was owned by a young girl.

That night another extravagance of Nina's came to light. In the morning they had been at an exhibition of furs brought to Rome by a Russian dealer. Among them was a set of superb sables, and Nina, throwing the collar around her aunt's shoulders, had exclaimed at their becomingness.

The princess unconsciously stroked the furs as she put them down. "I have never seen anything more lovely," she said wistfully, and with no idea that she had sighed. A sable collar and muff had been one of the desired things of her life, but it was utterly impossible now to think of so much as one skin, and in the piece and muff in question there were more than thirty.

That evening, upon their return, the princess found the furs in her room when she went to dress. At first she felt that they were too much to accept, but when Nina's hazel eyes implored, and her lips begged her aunt to take "just one present to remember her by," the princess for once gave free reign to her emotions and was as wildly delighted as a child.

The very next afternoon, however, Scorpa saw the sables, and on a slip of paper made the following note:

Sables 80,000 lire 60 H. P. motor car 30,000 lire

With a smile that would have done no discredit to his Satanic Majesty, he put the paper in his pocket.



CHAPTER XIV

APPLES OF SODOM

"It amounts to this: do you take a fitting interest in the name you bear, or do you not?" Sansevero was the speaker, and beneath his usual volubility there was an unwonted eagerness. The two brothers were in Giovanni's apartment on the second floor, which in Roman palaces usually belongs to the eldest son, and Giovanni sat astride a chair, his arms crossed over the back.

"I don't think you can ask such a question," he retorted hotly. "I am as much a Sansevero as you! But I really see no reason why—just because you have got a notion in your head that a pile of gold dollars would look well in our strong box—I should tie myself up for life. I am well enough as I am. My income is not regal, but it suffices."

Sansevero, like many talkative persons, was too busy thinking of what he was going to say next himself, to listen attentively to his brother's responses. He was merely aware that Giovanni's manner proclaimed opposition, so, when the sound of his voice ceased, Sansevero continued: "Nina is all the most fastidious could ask. Noblesse oblige—are you going to keep our name among the greatest in Rome, or are you going to let it fall like that of the Carpazzi? Shall they say of us in the near future, as they say of them to-day: 'Ah, yes, the Sanseveros were a great family once, but they are all dead or beggared now'?"

"Per Dio! What an orator we are becoming!" mocked Giovanni, looking out of half-shut eyes like a cat. But after a moment, also like a cat, he opened them wide and stared coolly at his brother. "Out of the mouth of babes——" he said impertinently. "My child, thou hast spoken much wisdom! It is, after all, a proposition that has, possibly, sense in it. La Nina is a woman such as any man might be glad to make his wife, and yet—this very fact that she is not an insignificant personality, is what I object to! I doubt her developing into either a blinded saint or a coquette with amiable complacence for others. We should lead a peppery life, I fear. But don't you think, my brother, that we are a bit hysterical over our family's extermination? After all, I am only twenty-eight; and in my opinion thirty-five is a suitable age for a man to marry. How old are you, Sandro—thirty-seven, is it not? And Leonora is nearly three years less. Of a truth, you are young!"

He rested his cheek in the hollow of his hand, looking up sideways. "It would be a great amusement if I should marry because I am the heir to the estates, and then you should have a large family—so——" He made steps with his unoccupied hand to indicate a succession of children. Then he laughed, without seeming to consider the difference that the birth of an heir to his brother would make to himself. He arose, lit a cigarette, and, smoking, threw himself into an easy chair on the other side of the room. The great Dane, which had been lying beside him as usual, now slowly got up, crossed the room, and dropped down again at his master's feet.

Meanwhile the prince, hands in pockets, had unaccountably become as silent as he had before been talkative, and Giovanni, upon observing his brother's sulky expression, leaned forward.

"Well?" he questioned, with a new ring in his voice, for Sansevero's moodiness was never a good omen. "What are you thinking of? Come, say it!"

Sansevero paced the length of the room and back; then he burst out: "Very well, it is this—everything is as bad as can be—so bad that if you don't marry money, and at once, the Sansevero burial will take place before you and I are dead. Nome di Dio! how are we to live with no money?"

"Since you ask my opinion, I have long wondered why you do not live better than you do," Giovanni answered. "Your income, added to Leonora's money, must make a very handsome sum. But one of the faults of the American women is that they are seldom good managers. Leonora is either no exception to the rule—or else she is getting very miserly. Why, an Italian on Leonora's income would live like a queen!"

"Be silent!" Sansevero, flushing darkly, flamed into speech. "Before you dare to criticise the woman who adorns our house! Here is the truth for you: I haven't one cent of private fortune—I gambled it all away long ago! More than half of Leonora's money is lost—I lost it. Some of it she paid out for my debts; the greater portion I put into the 'Little Devil' mine. I might much better have shoveled it into the Tiber. Do you know what she has done—the woman whom you criticise as a bad manager and stigmatize as mean—I would not care what you said, if you had not thought Leonora mean! Dio mio, MEAN! Know, then, that the very jewels she wears are false; that the real ones have been sold—to pay the debts of the man standing before you—the gambling debts of the head of one of the noblest houses in Italy!"

Giovanni was deeply moved, for this was a wound in his one vulnerable point, his pride of birth. The cigarette dropped to the floor unheeded. He moistened his lips as Alessandro continued:

"They were Leonora's own jewels that were sold, mark you. The Sansevero heirlooms will go to your son's wife intact, as they came to mine! But that is not all: I have given my oath to Leonora never again to go into a game of chance, and really I want to keep it! Yet you know—no, you don't; no one can who hasn't the fever in his veins—if I see a game, it is as though an unseen force had me in its grip, drawing me against my will; I can't resist! At Savini's I was dining, and I did not know they were going to play—I won a very little; enough to pay the interest on what I owe Meyer. But it makes me cold all over to think—if I had lost! An enviable inheritance you will get, when it is known what a mess of things the present holder of the title has made!" He dropped into a chair opposite his brother, and buried his face in his hands; between his slim fingers his forehead looked dark, and his temple veins swollen. For a long time Giovanni sat immovable, staring fixedly, but when at last he broke the silence, he spoke almost lightly:

"It is not a very charming history that you have given me—even though it increases my admiration for the woman who has, it seems, been more worthy of the name she bears than has the man who conferred his titles upon her. I wish you had told me before." Then, with a queerly whimsical smile, he said musingly: "To marry the girl with the golden hair—and purse? Not such a terrible fate to look forward to, after all! She would demand a great deal, and I should have to keep the brakes on. Still—that would do me no harm! You look as though you had been down a sulphur mine. Come, cheer up—all may yet be well." Suddenly he laughed out loud. "Funny thing," he observed further—"you know, I am not so sure that I am not rather in love."

He leaned to St. Anthony, and, putting his hand through the dog's collar beneath the throat, lifted the head on the back of his wrist. "Tell me, padre, am I in love? Do you advise the marriage?" The dog put his paw up, fanned the air once in missing, and let it rest on his master's knee.

Giovanni laughed aloud "Ecco! Sandro, he consents!"



CHAPTER XV

AN OPPOSITION BOOTH IS SET UP IN THE MARKET PLACE

While Sansevero and Giovanni were in their imaginations refurbishing their escutcheon, two other men, with the opposite intent, stood on the front steps of the agency of "Thomas Cook and Sons." One was proclaimed by the regulation "Cook's" badge on his cap to be a guide; the other, by his military cloak, might have been recognized as an official of the Italian government. Both had shown covert interest in the Princess Sansevero, who, looking particularly lovely in her magnificent set of sables, had crossed the sidewalk with the light, buoyant carriage characteristic of her.

"There, you may see for yourself if it is I who speak the truth." This was said by the guide.

The official looked at him askance as he drew his bushy brows together and pulled at his beard. "I confess it looks serious—and strongly favors your supposition."

"But what else? It is as plain as the nose on your face, I should say! At Torre Sansevero they have been living on next to nothing—my cousin is cook, and I know that every soldo is counted. They come to Rome and spend their savings. You will say they have done that for years; but tell me this, should their savings in this year treble the savings of other years?"

Triumphantly he looked at his companion and, throwing back his head, put his hands on his hips. Then, with a return to his confidential manner, he laid his finger against his nose. "I know it for a fact," he continued—"Luigi heard it at the key-hole—that their excellencies contemplated staying at Torre Sansevero all this winter! Her excellency had the look—Maria, the maid, told the servants that much—that her excellency always has when signore, the prince, has cut the strings and left the purse empty."

"Furthermore?" The official twirled his mustache with an air of incredulity.

"Furthermore, the great Raphael disappears! Her excellency's renovation story was a little weak for my digestion, and, unless my eyes played me false, she was well frightened. I'll take my oath she was at a loss what to answer."

"You say you taxed her with it?"

"As I told you. She answered that the picture was being renovated. An answer for an idiot—the picture is one of the best canvases extant; in perfect repair."

"Did you tell her that?"

"Partially. I am sure she saw my suspicion."

"I should doubt her carrying out the sale after that. There is where your story fails."

"Ah, but it had already gone! It was perhaps by then in the house of a foreign millionaire. No, no, my story hangs together: The great picture disappears! A month later—time exactly for its arrival in America and the payment for it to be sent over here—her excellency of no money comes out in such a motor-car as that! And sables! I have an eye for furs. My father was in the business. The value of those she has on runs easily into the seventy or eighty thousand lire. Here she comes now, out of the banker's where American money is most often paid! Do you want better evidence?"

He had been punctuating all he said with his fingers, and now, with a final snap of arms and a shrug of shoulders, he looked up in keen triumph at his companion.

The other—slower and less excited than the narrator (probably because he was not the discoverer of the plot)—nevertheless showed lively interest. "It is very grave," he admitted at last. "But the Sansevero family is illustrious. We may not proceed against them without due consideration. I shall report the case to the chief of our secret service, and the prince must be——"

A tall, athletic young man who had been changing some foreign gold into Italian, came into the open doorway of the office. A carriage, passing at that moment close to the curb, had prevented the two men from hearing the stranger's footfall, and as the latter stood on the top step, searching in his pocket for matches, he happened to catch the name "Sansevero." At once his attention was arrested, but as the conversation was carried on in an undertone, he caught only vague, detached words. Still, he was sure that he had heard "Raphael" after the name, "Sansevero," "disappearance," and then something like "secret service." But his presence evidently had become known, for as he passed on out into the street the two in blue coats were talking loudly about the excursion to Tivoli and the scenery en route.

Walking out into the middle of the square where the cabs stand, he jumped into the first one, but he looked cautiously back toward the men in front of Cook's, before telling the driver to take him to the Palazzo Sansevero.

Here the portiere in his morning clothes, very different from the gorgeous apparel of afternoon, was sweeping out the courtyard. Holding his broom handle with exactly the same dignity with which, later in the day, he would hold his mace, he informed the stranger that his excellency the prince was not at home—neither was her excellency the princess. Upon being asked whether Miss Randolph were perhaps at home, he altogether forgot his imperturbability. That a signore should send in his card to a signorina was so far outside the range of his experience that the man stood with his mouth open, unable even to think what answer to give. As though he were a somnambulist, the man took the card and slowly read the name on its face; then he looked the stranger over from head to foot, read the name a second time, and finally entered the palace.

The young man watched his retreating figure, and then, throwing back his head, laughed long and heartily. After which he fell to studying the details of the courtyard. He noted with keen interest the deep ruts worn in the solid stone paving under the massive arches of the gateways, and glanced up at the bas-reliefs between the windows. At the sound of footsteps he turned and encountered Nina's maid, Celeste.

Mademoiselle had sent her to bid him mount to the salon. Through the green baize doors—it was the shorter way—and then, if monsieur would go straight on to the very last of the rooms— His striding pace made Celeste fairly trot along at his heels. He went through room after room. Was there no end to them? At last Nina's slight, girlish figure was seen silhouetted against a broad window at the end—the light at her back hazing the gold of her hair, like a nimbus, about her face.

She ran toward him, both hands out. "Jack! Dear Jack! Is it you, really, or am I dreaming? When did you come? Oh, I am so glad to see you; but what a surprise! Why did you not send word?"

For a moment a light leaped into Derby's eyes. It seemed as though Nina was looking at him exactly as he, in his day dreams, had seen her. But his prudence steadied his first impulse, and he put down her gladness as merely the joy of a person who, far from home, sees suddenly a familiar face in the midst of strangers; and they sat on the sofa just as they had sat on the railing of the veranda in the country, ever since they were children.

In Derby's account of himself, Nina could easily read the confidence that had led her father to send him to Italy. But their talk had gone little further than the barest outline of his mission when the prince and princess returned. At the sight of Nina sitting alone with a man, the princess came forward quickly with the question, "My child, what does this mean?" as plainly asked in her eyes as it could have been by spoken words. But at Nina's "John Derby, Aunt Eleanor!" the princess put out her hand with all the grace in the world, and as she returned the straight, frank look of his blue eyes, her whole expression became youthful, as if reflecting some pleasant memory of her girlhood.

"I knew your uncle very, very well!" She smiled entrancingly. It was a smile that irresistibly attracted to her all who ever saw it. "You are like him." Then she added softly, dreamingly, as though half speaking to herself, "You remind me of so many things—at home!"

The next minute she had turned to present Derby to her husband, and the conversation became general. But, finally, in a pause, Nina said, "Jack, tell Uncle Sandro what father sent you over to do. Or is it a secret?"

Derby looked toward Sansevero as though measuring the man. "It is no great secret—but I would rather it was not spoken of yet."

"My ears are deaf, and my tongue is dumb." Sansevero put his hand over his ear, his mouth, and finally his heart.

"I have come over to buy, or to lease—at all events, to work—sulphur mines."

As though an electric current had been turned on, Sansevero sat up straight, and his levity vanished. "To work sulphur mines! Will you tell me more? I have a particular reason for wanting to know."

Derby answered willingly. "I can give you a general idea. I was forced into inventing a new method of mining on account of the quicksands, which are found all through our mines at home. Taking a suggestion from the oil wells, I bored just such a well down into the sulphur beds. Ordinarily the sulphur is brought up in powder or rock form, and refined in vats on the surface, so that not only do the miners have to go down into the sulphurous heat, but the caldrons in which the sulphur is refined give out gases that are unendurable to human throats and lungs. In our mines, the sulphur is now refined sixty or a hundred feet below the surface of the ground, and pours out in an already purified state, at the top of the well."

Sansevero looked incredulous. "But sulphur is almost impossible to liquefy. Unlike metals, it congeals again when it has been heated beyond the proper temperature. Also it corrodes any metal it touches, so that a pipe would be eaten away immediately."

"To get over those difficulties is exactly what I am trying to do by my new process," Derby answered. "The sulphur is melted by hot water sent down the pipes, followed by sand, and then sawdust—the sand to carry the heat to the cooler edges, and the wet sawdust to check the heat at the center."

Even the princess drew nearer and laid her hand on her husband's arm as Derby made his explanation. Sansevero trembled with excitement. "But according to that," he cried, turning to his wife; "our mine would be practicable!" Then to Derby: "I ought to explain to you that we have a sulphur mine in Sicily, near Vencata. So far as I know, the sulphur does, as you say, lie in a bed some twenty meters down. Above it are rock and alluvial soil. The volcanic neighborhood makes the temperature below ground higher than can be borne, yet we know that the sulphur deposit is immense."

"Give me more details. From what you say, it sounds as though this mine of yours might be exactly what we are looking for. Does Mr. Randolph know of it, or that you are the owner?"

"No; no one knows it excepting one small group of sulphur owners. I unwisely went into it on the advice of—some one who is very good at all these things; yet the best are liable to mistake. Other mines in the neighborhood, owned by friends of mine, have brought in a fortune. Ours has, so far, been a failure."

The talk lasted until luncheon was served. Giovanni put in an appearance, and Derby was pressed to stay. As di Valdo and the American met, there was a barely perceptible coldness under the Italian's good manners, while Derby's greeting showed a momentary curiosity. Two more sharply contrasted beings could hardly have been brought together. But gradually Giovanni also became interested in the mining plans, and, as the reason for the American's coming to Europe very evidently was business and not the pursuit of the heiress, Giovanni's affability became genuine.

The end of the matter was that Derby agreed to take up the Sansevero mine, commonly known as the "Little Devil"; to be worked on a "royalty" basis. Derby, representing his company, was to pay all expenses, take all responsibility, and to return to Sansevero a percentage of the market price on every ton of sulphur taken out of it.

Furthermore, Sansevero insisted upon giving him a letter to the Archbishop of Vencata, who lived about eight hours on muleback from the mining settlement. The Sicilians, he declared, were a dangerous people for strangers who tried to interfere in their established order of things.

"So then I am likely to have adventures! It sounds exciting!" The American laughed light-heartedly at the sport of it. However, he accepted the letter to the archbishop.



CHAPTER XVI

A MENACE

Derby did not realize until afterward that the entire conversation at the Palazzo Sansevero had been about his projects, and that, aside from a few generalities, he really knew nothing of Nina's winter or of her Italian experiences. He returned to his hotel at about five o'clock, and was striding directly toward the smoking-room without glancing to right or left among the attractive groups that characterize the tea hour at the Excelsior, when he was arrested by some one's calling, "Why, John Derby!"

In the crowd of persons and tables he looked blankly for a familiar face, but, as his name was repeated, he recognized Mrs. Bobby Davis and her sister, Mildred Hoyt. As soon as Derby reached their table, Mrs. Davis glibly rattled off the names of the four or five men who comprised their party. They were all Europeans, who, in regular afternoon attire—frock coats, and flower in buttonhole—were sipping tea and eating cake. Derby was in tweeds, and afternoon tea was by no means part of his daily program.

However, he made the best of it, and also of the remarks that followed, for he was sooner seated than Mrs. Davis turned all her powers of sprightly conversation upon the subject of Nina. Half of the nobility of Italy, she averred, were sighing—or busily doing sums—at the feet of the American heiress. There was a particularly fascinating Sansevero—he was not called Sansevero, but di Valdo (curious custom of having half a dozen names for one person!), who, it was rumored, was simply mad about Nina! People said she was going to marry him—either him or Duke something. And there were crowds of others. That was one of her suitors now—she pointed out Tornik, who was taking tea with a group from the Austrian Embassy. He was most attractive, didn't John think so? In Nina's place, she would have her head turned!

This idea seemed to be a new one to Derby. "Should you?" The question was asked so reflectively that Mrs. Davis almost stopped to think; but the habit of prattling carried her on.

"To have men like that sighing for one—I should call it thrilling, to say the least."

Derby's look questioned. "I wonder why the Europeans make such a hit with you women," he said. "Why, for instance, do you find that man over there attractive? What do you like about him?"

"Seriously?" Mrs. Davis patted her hair up the back with a little smoothing movement of satisfaction. "I don't know how to put it—it is very indefinable; but a man like that has a quality—a polish, I suppose it is, really—that is quite irresistible."

Derby looked rather disgusted. "And you think that is why Nina likes them?"

"Oh, there are other reasons—lots of them. In the first place, Nina has a bad case of 'allure de noblesse.' In her case I don't wonder! You can't imagine anything so heavenly as her aunt's palace; it is every bit as fine as any of the galleries or museums."

As though this remark added a new link to a chain of old impressions, Derby found himself asking: "By the way—they have a famous picture gallery out in the country somewhere, haven't they?"

Mrs. Davis turned for information to Prince Minotti, sitting next to her; who, as he was not especially welcomed by the Romans, much affected the society of Americans, since to them, as a rule, a prince is a prince, and the name that follows of comparative unimportance.

"Torre Sansevero," he said pompously, "is one of the finest estates we have in Italy. In fact, the gardens are hardly less celebrated than those of the Villa d'Este, and there are a few excellent paintings. Do you ask for any special reason?"

"No," replied Derby casually. "I heard they had a Raphael that was especially beautiful; I should like to see it—that is all."

"Do you, by chance, know the Princess Sansevero's niece, from America, who is captivating Rome this winter?"

"Miss Randolph? Yes."

"Ah, then it will be easy for you to get permission to see the painting. The gallery is not open to the public, though Cook's, I believe, send a party out once a week, to see the gardens."

To Derby the suspicion at once became a certainty that, in overhearing the talk between the Cook's guide and the official, he had by accident stumbled upon something of serious importance to the Sanseveros. He was puzzling over it when, in the smoking-room, a few moments later, he encountered Eliot Porter, an American writer who was making a study of Roman life. At sight of Derby he called out heartily, "Hello, Jack, when did you come over?"

Derby drew up a chair beside him, and briefly sketched the object of his visit.

"Negotiating with Scorpa, I suppose?" asked Porter.

"The Sulphur King?" Derby shook his head. "No, I don't think I shall need him. I have my hands on a property that promises to be what I am looking for. The duke wants to work his mines himself and in his own way. I am merely trying a scheme; if it turns out well, good! If not, I shall have tested it."

"When do you begin operations? I suppose you realize, my friend, that it is no joke to interfere with the Sicilians? They are as suspicious of a new face as a tribe of savages. Savages is just about what they are, too! And there is another element that you should not lose sight of: If you are going to upset Scorpa's methods, it is not the Sicilians alone that you will have to deal with, but also the duke himself."

"I am not going to try his property."

"No, but he controls the sulphur output. If you come into his market—well, I'd not give a soldo for your skin. Besides, that would be the second grudge he'd have against you!"

"Second? I don't understand——"

"He wants to marry your best girl! Oh, hold on—no offense meant. She is having a splendid time of it, if a string of satellites as long as the Ponte San Angelo constitutes a woman's joy. All the same, my boy; put this in your pipe and smoke it: 'Ware Scorpa, don't turn your back to any one who might be in his employ, and bolt your door at night. Will you have my Winchester?"

Derby smoked on, unperturbed. "It sounds as though it might be interesting. I had expected a mere proposition of machinery; the human element always adds. Wasn't it you who told me that?"

"In a book, decidedly!" and then with a sudden impulse, "By Jove, Jack, I believe it would be a good thing for me to go along with you! I might get new copy."

Derby laughed incredulously. "Well, if you mean it, come along! I wish you would." Porter meant it enough to be interested in the project, at any rate, for later the two men dined together, and they discussed arrangements and expedients all the evening.

Derby went to the Palazzo Sansevero the next day, but again he had much to talk over with the prince, and saw little of Nina. In some unaccountable way she seemed changed; nothing definite happened to mark the difference that he vaguely felt, but Mrs. Davis's remark came back to him—"The Europeans are so finished," and he wondered whether Nina found him unfinished; he even wondered whether he was or not—which was a good deal of wondering for him.

At first, Sansevero's investment in the "Little Devil" had seemed to Derby merely the unfortunate venture the prince thought it, but when, in the course of their talk, it came out that Scorpa was the "friend" who had sold him the mine, Derby was sure that the duke had deliberately saddled him with a property which he knew to be useless. And yet every word that Scorpa had urged as a reason for the mine's value, was—taken literally—true. The mine was in close proximity to his own; the surveys, furthermore, showed the "Little Devil" to be the richest in sulphur deposit of any in the region. But if the mine was as valuable as Scorpa declared, it was scarcely compatible with all that was known of his character that out of purely disinterested friendship, he should put such a prize in Sansevero's hands, while he bought up for himself less valuable mines at higher prices. Derby kept his opinions to himself; but his blood boiled with indignation and, mentally, he resolved to beat Scorpa if it was humanly possible.

As Derby was leaving, Nina deliberately went from the room with him. "I want to speak with John a few minutes," she said to her aunt. "We are both Americans, you know," she added, laughing. In the adjoining room she motioned him to sit beside her, but he stood instead, leaning against the window frame. She looked up with something like apology. "Am I keeping you?" she asked quickly. "Are you in a hurry?"

Almost with the manner of Mr. Randolph, he pulled out his watch. "Not especially. I have an appointment with the Duke Scorpa—but not for half an hour." She had not noticed before the nervously hurried manner of her countrymen. There were many things she wanted to talk to John about—but she might as well have tried to carry on a restful conversation at a railroad station, when the train was coming in.

"With Scorpa?" She tried to hold his attention. "What are you going to see him about?"

Derby seemed preoccupied.

"I don't think I'm very sure myself—further than that he wants to buy my patents, which I have no intention of selling, and I want to rent his mines, which he has no intention of renting. Rather asinine, going to see him! Still, as he insists——" There was an eagerness in Derby's face inconsistent with the shrugging of his shoulders.

But Nina's thoughts were not on the processes of mining just then, though they were on Scorpa. She looked at Derby appealingly.

"Jack!"

"Yes, Nina?"

"Do you know what I think?—Aunt Eleanor won't say a word; she hides it all she can, but she must have lost almost her entire fortune. Jack, do you think that Duke Scorpa could be at the bottom of it?"

Derby gave her a glance of keen interest, but he expressed no surprise and asked her no questions. As a matter of fact, the gossip of the Cook's guide had partly prepared him for Nina's revelation about her aunt's fortune, and he had his own theories about Scorpa. "Quite likely," he answered dryly, "but it is also quite likely that we shall get the better of him——" Then, with a sudden change in his manner he looked at her steadily. "But perhaps you don't want us to get the better of him?"

"Do you mean——?"

"I hear he is very devoted—and he has not only the handle to his name that you women seem to be keen about, but he is too rich to be after your money." Derby had no sooner said the words than he regretted them. But seeing Nina color, he misinterpreted her feelings, and spoke under a sudden flash of jealousy. "And I suppose the title of duchess is irresistible."

Nina was deeply hurt. "That is pretty blunt," she said, the pupils of her eyes contracted as though the sun blinded them. "Have you ever seen the man you speak of? No? Well, you would not say such a thing if you had. I hate him!"

Derby seemed fated to blunder. Again he made the wrong remark. "Hate, they say, is next to love."

His lack of insight, so palpable in contrast with Giovanni's keenness of perception, was too much for Nina's new sensitiveness. She suddenly congealed, and stood up, very straight, with the little upward tilt of the chin that indicated fast approaching temper.

Derby knew this symptom well enough, but he had not the slightest idea that his own obtuseness was the cause. Without analyzing, he accepted her starting up as a signal to leave, and promptly said good-by. "Good-by, then!" Nina said frigidly; and, turning on her heel, she abruptly left him.

Under the spur of her anger against him, the words framed themselves in her mind—"How unfinished he is!" But down in her heart there was an ache, deeper than could have been caused by mere irritation, or even disappointment. Never before in her life had there been a breach between John and her. She felt it was all the fault of his own density—or was it lack of feeling?

She went to her room to put on her riding habit, for she was going to the meet. Then, as she dressed, the thought came to her that John, a foreigner, and the most venturesome person in the world, was going off to Sicily, into the very center of one of the wildest districts. And gradually fear for him made her forget her resentment.

Just as she was leaving her room a big cornucopia of roses was brought in, to which was appended the following note:

"If we weren't such old friends and you didn't know what a blundering fool I am, I wouldn't dare to apologize for this morning. Judge me by intent, though, won't you—and forgive me?

"JACK."

Nina broke off a rose and fastened it to the lapel of her habit; but the note she tucked in between the buttonholes. Suddenly humming a gay little song, she ran through the rooms and corridors to join her aunt and uncle, who were waiting for her to motor out to the hunt, the horses having been sent ahead with the grooms. As they drove out of the courtyard she noticed that the sun was brilliantly shining.

At the meet the scene was really animated, for the day was perfect, and the Via Appia was a bright moving picture of carriages, large and small, big motors and little runabouts, the road dotted here and there with the brilliant scarlet coats of those who were to hunt and the bright colors of women's dresses in the various conveyances.

There was apparently much lack of system: the huntsmen chatted aimlessly with persons in the carriages; while the hounds scurried around according to their own inclinations, paying little attention to the snap of the whip. The Contessa Potensi, who had appeared in a pink hunting coat, was the cynosure of all eyes. The innovation created quite a stir and no little admiration. She bowed to Nina with unusual civility, and made a formal acknowledgment of the pleasure of riding with her. Yet shortly after, when she joined a group of friends a distance farther on, she was laughing and glancing back as she spoke, in a way that left little doubt that she was making disparaging remarks.

Sansevero and Giovanni had mounted their hunters, and now joined Nina, but that gave her little pleasure, for the contessa immediately returned. Nina was glad when Donna Francesca Dobini and the young Prince Allegro cantered up. Donna Francesca was soon talking with Sansevero, leaving Nina to Allegro—an attractive youth, but light as a bit of fluff.

As for Giovanni, she felt that he was as unstable as the dead leaves which the wind at that moment was blowing around and around. They were graceful, too, those leaves, and Giovanni was fascinating, agile, charming—but in case one counted upon him seriously, where would he be? Smiling sweetly, no doubt, at some other woman, and telling her that her eyes were twin lakes of heaven's blue, or forest pools in which his heart was lost forever.

The contrasting image of John Derby came sharply to mind. John was going to Sicily to do a man's work in a man's way. A little later she noticed Tornik, who was cantering ahead of her: his figure was not unlike John's—he was strong and masculine. She wondered aimlessly if they might be in any other way alike. Supposing, in some unaccountable situation she were to be thrown upon his chivalry for protection, what would he do? Shrug his shoulders and look bored? Or detail a company from his regiment to stand guard over her? The idea made her laugh.

"You are gay this morning," observed Giovanni, light-heartedly joining in her laughter.

With a quizzical little expression Nina looked at him—"I wonder if you would be amused if you knew why I laughed."



"If it gives you pleasure—it is delicious, whatever it is!"

All the softness went out of the girl's brown eyes; they glittered curiously. "Yes," she said, "that is just what I thought." After which ambiguous remark she returned to her former gayety—"Come," she said, "let's go fast; we shall be the last!" Urging her horse, she galloped across the fields.

She would have been at a loss to understand her own vacillations of mood that day: she seemed to feel an unaccountable revulsion against every one. The gesticulations of the men around her, their airs and blandishments, annoyed her. Not an hour earlier she had found John dull and flat by comparison with Europeans. Now suddenly they were effeminate dandies, and John alone was a real man.

But the exhilaration of jumping brought her to a more equable frame of mind, and at the first check she and the Prince Allegro were in the lead. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright from the long gallop.

They had stopped on a knoll out on the Campagna, and Nina remained apart from the other hunters, walking her horse slowly, while Allegro went over to the carriage to get a handkerchief for her from the Princess Sansevero. She drew in deep breaths of the fresh air, as she gazed out over the rolling hills to the snowclad tops of the Albanian mountains glistening in the sunshine.

Then suddenly a deep, oily voice jarred through her wandering thoughts. "You are very pensive!" exclaimed the Duke Scorpa, appearing beside her.

Nina started violently, for, besides his unexpected appearance, there was something in this man's personality that always sent a shudder through her.

"The Marchese di Valdo has been telling me that I am very gay," she answered, not so much to give the duke the information as to contradict him.

"Then I am doubly sad, since you are gay with others, and absent-minded when I come." A lurking familiarity in his smile made Nina wince. He ranged his horse so close that his boots brushed against hers, and she pulled aside quickly; he did not move close again, but he checked her attempt to pass him, keeping between her and the other riders.

"Why are you so cruel?" he murmured. "Diana never had so many votaries as Venus."

"I am not interested in mythology," said Nina, her heart fluttering with fright. "Please allow me to pass—I want to join my uncle."

"Sweet, pale little Diana,"—he leaned over in his saddle and purred the words at her—"where mythology failed was in not marrying Diana to Mars. Exactly as—you are going to marry me!"

"I will not! I told you before I would not! Let me pass!" She pulled the reins so taut that her horse reared as she urged him forward, but again the duke ranged his horse close beside her, heading off her attempt to get past.

"A woman's 'won't' as often means she will," he answered deliberately. "It is when she says she is not certain that her irrevocable decision is made."

"I hate you, I utterly hate you!" cried Nina, her anger getting the better of her fear.

The duke laughed maliciously. "I had scarcely hoped to make so deep a mark on your emotions! If you hate me, then truly you will marry me!—against your will, if need be," he added, reining back his horse at last. "I will wait to make you love me afterward."

At this point Allegro returned with the handkerchief, and the duke let Nina pass. Tornik, also, now joined her, the master of the hounds gave the signal, and again the riders were off. Nina, between Tornik and Allegro, was protected from the duke's approach, but she kept apprehensively glancing back. She looked about for her uncle, but could not see him.

As a matter of fact, Sansevero's horse had strained itself slightly in one of the jumps, and he had thought it best to drop out of the hunt. He had gone only a short distance on his way toward Rome when he was joined by Scorpa, who said that he did not care to ride farther but would go back with Sansevero. The prince was glad of his company until Scorpa began:

"You have not yet given me a favorable answer to my proposal for Miss Randolph's hand."

The abruptness with which the subject was introduced irritated Sansevero, and he answered sulkily: "I told you, when you first spoke to me, that it was a matter Miss Randolph would have to decide for herself. An American girl never allows other people to arrange her marriage for her, and I found my niece not at all disposed to reconsider her answer."

An ugly light shone in the duke's eyes. "I do not want to seem importunate," he said, "but—I would do very much for the man who furthered my marriage with Miss Randolph, and you would find the alliance of our families of great advantage. I am a hot-blooded fellow, but I'm not such a bad lot. I cannot help being wounded, though, by your niece's indifference, and in jealousy of a rival I might do things that otherwise would not enter my head. This is—eh—not a threat—but it is a family trait—the Scorpas stop at nothing once their hearts are aflame! Think it over, my friend, before you decide not to help me."

He sighed deeply and then, as though turning his attention to the first trivial thought that came to mind, he said casually: "By the way, I have been reading lately an extremely interesting book on celebrated criminal cases, and I was particularly impressed by the way in which circumstantial evidence can be built up out of harmless trifles. Since reading it I have been rather amusing myself by constructing hypothetical cases. For instance"—Scorpa pursed his lips and lowered his eyes, as though trying to invent a fanciful story—"take a transaction such as your letting me have that picture. One could build a very stirring case upon that!"

"Yes?" encouraged the prince. "How do you mean?"

"Well, to begin, we would send word to the government that your Raphael Madonna had been sold out of the country."

"I don't think that a good beginning, because it is easy enough to prove it is in your palace."

"Ah, of course. But for the amusement of the argument we will say that I want to do you an injury and so smuggle it out of the country! Then when I am questioned, I deny all knowledge of it. Yes, I would have you there! It would be quite feasible, because no one saw the picture change hands, and your notes to me—the only proof of the transfer—could easily be destroyed. You see? This really grows interesting! Then comes all the cumulative evidence of the type I was speaking about; for instance: After the supposed sale of the picture, you indulge in unwonted expenditures—of course, it is easy to say that they are those of the American heiress stopping with you"—he paused, in apparent thoughtfulness—"but when, in addition, an enemy buys in Paris a pair of earrings, matchless emeralds, that are recognized as having been worn——"

"Dio mio! My wife's emeralds!" Sansevero was startled into exclaiming. Then suddenly he blazed out: "What do you mean by your story? If you have anything to say, say it so I can follow you."

From the gross lips of the duke his apology fell like drops of thickest oil: "I regret you take my pleasantry so ill, and I ask your pardon as many times as you require, my friend! It happened by chance that I saw a pair of emeralds in Paris that were duplicates of the magnificent gems I have often admired when the princess wore them, and the jeweler told me that they had been sold at a sacrifice by a noble lady in urgent need of money. The curious coincidence came to my mind in illustration of the problems I was talking of. Further than that I meant nothing—except that I was serious in what I said about repaying the man who should bring about my marriage."

They had long since passed through the Porta San Giovanni and had arrived at the Coliseum. Scorpa gave Sansevero little chance to answer, but with a friendly good-by, he turned toward the Monte Quirinal. Sansevero pursued his way along the foot of the Palatine. He was disturbed; but he could not bring himself to read into the duke's words a covert threat. His first impulse was to repeat the conversation to Eleanor, but he knew how the mere suspicion that Scorpa had detected her false stones had worried her. Curiously enough, in Sansevero's mind the larger issue of the picture was quite overlooked in the more immediate consideration of the jewels. By the time he reached home he had decided to wait until further events should show Scorpa's intentions. And until then he would say nothing to any one—least of all to Eleanor.

In the meantime Nina was galloping across the Campagna. For a while the fear of Scorpa remained, but when she realized that he was no longer with the hunt, she breathed more freely, and again began to enjoy the day. It was almost as though she were riding through the country at home. She might have been hunting in Westchester, or on Long Island, for any actual difference that there was, and the finish, as at home, was merely anise seed, and the hounds were fed raw meat.



CHAPTER XVII

NINA DUSTS BEHIND THE COUNTER

Kate Titherington, daughter of Alonzo K. Titherington, the Pittsburg iron magnate, had some six years before married the Count Masco. After a short experience of living in his ancestral palace, they had moved into an apartment out in the new part of the city; very handsome, very luxurious and modern in every way. "Deliver me from these musty old dungeons!" she had exclaimed to her husband. "I will give a free deed of gift to the rats, who are really, my dear, the only beings I can think of to whom this tumbledown barracks of yours would be comfortable." Her husband was a meek and inoffensive appendage, who had been well brought up by an overbearing mother and turned over, perfectly trained, to the strenuous requirements of the bonny Kate.

The vivid Countess Masco, nee Titherington, was looked upon with disfavor by the more conservative Romans, and her position was rather, one might say, on the outer edge of the inner circle. There were those who liked her, and who found her amusing and lively; indeed, that was the trouble—it was her liveliness that had banished her to the outer edge, instead of making a place for her in the inmost circle, where Eleanor Sansevero, for instance, was so securely established.

Nina had known Kate Titherington one summer at Bar Harbor, but her first encounter with this flamboyant personality in Italy was at the Grand Hotel a few days before the hunt. Nina was serving at one of the tables of a charity tea, when she saw a very highly-colored, plump figure, with draperies in full sail, bearing down upon her from the top of the wide steps, at the back of the big red hall. The red of the hall paled beside the cerise costume of the approaching lady. In a voice loud and high-keyed, yet not unmusical, she cried:

"Well, I declare if it isn't little Nina Randolph!" And then with exuberant good humor she called to her husband, who followed lamb-like in her wake, "You see, Gio, it is the little Randolph—I told you so!

"This is my husband." She presented him as though he were some inanimate personal possession. "We have been in Paris and Monte Carlo all winter. Got back yesterday. Nice old place, Rome, don't you think so? I dote on it, but of course it gets provincial if you stay too long!" At the same moment she caught sight of Zoya Olisco, and waved to her. To Nina's surprise, the young Russian came forward with both hands outstretched. "Ah, you are back? What was the news in Monte Carlo?"

"Nothing much. They still talk of the coup that Tornik——" But before Nina could hear the end of the sentence, the old Princess Malio handed her a five-lire note for tea, and Nina had to get change. Then the whole family of the Rosenbaums, eight in number, demanded her services for many cups of tea and as many plates of sandwiches and cakes, and when their change was counted, the Countess Kate and her attendant husband were leaving. The countess, however, called back over her shoulder, "You are dining with me on Friday; the princess said yes for you!"

And so it was that on the evening of the hunt Nina, alone with her uncle—her aunt having stayed at home on account of a headache—found herself entering a big new apartment house, and going up in an elevator, quite as though she were at home in one of the most modern, instead of one of the most ancient, cities in the world.

The Masco apartment was all brand-new—so new that there was still about it an odor of fresh paint and plaster, and the pungency of raw textiles. The Countess Kate, not to be outdone by her decorator, was as new as her surroundings—in the latest style of sheath dress, of a brilliant blue, which she wore triumphantly, regardless of the strain with which it stretched across the amplitude of her bosom.

The company consisted of the Oliscos, Count Tornik, Prince Minotti, Count Rosso, Prince Allegro, Eliot Porter, and John Derby. It gave Nina a sudden feeling of satisfaction to see how attractive John was by comparison with the others. He had a quiet reserve and a forcefulness that Nina thought very effective in this foreign surrounding, and she was ashamed of herself for having judged him by the shallow standard of mere social grace.

The Countess Masco's parties were renowned for their gayety. She was one of those hostesses whose vivacity never relaxes, and whose ready answers pass for sparkling wit. According to her own standard, a party was a success or a failure as it was noisy or quiet. Consequently she talked and laughed continuously. Startling colors were her particular weakness, and by the scent of extract of tuberose she could be traced for days.

Nina sat between Eliot Porter and the young Prince Allegro; but her attention wandered across the table to John Derby so constantly that the Prince Allegro remarked, "You seem to be entranced by that American!"

"Mr. Derby happens to be my oldest and my best friend!" Nina answered. Then, realizing that she had made the statement sententiously, she smiled brightly. "You Europeans so often say that American men are unattractive," she said. "Over there you may behold one of 'our best!'"

Without rancor or jealousy, the young prince seemed entirely to agree with her opinion. "Why is it we so seldom meet those Americans you call 'best'?" he asked, between spoonfuls of puree d'ecrevisse.

"Because they are those who have to stay at home and work." And then she added, "They are saints—don't you think?"

"They are very stupid, I should say."

Nina let her spoon rest on the rim of her plate. "That's not polite of you."

"Why? Since it is true. Of course they are stupid! They let their women, who are adorable, come over to us. Would I, do you think, if you were my wife, allow you so much as to go out for an afternoon's drive without me? Never! To prove further that your men are stupid—in no country are there so many divorces as in America!"

"It is not because our men are stupid, at all events!"

"Then why is it?"

"Chiefly because our men have too little time to give us." And then she spoke under sudden stress of feeling, without perhaps knowing the full wisdom of what she said: "Do you suppose that if our men at home had time for us, we would come over here, to you?"

"Then all the more are the Americans fools!" He raised his champagne glass. "Signorina," he said, "may you find the American who has the time."

Involuntarily her glance went toward John. Allegro saw it and laughed. "Ah, ha! So that is why we have no chance? Still," he added on second thought, "your choice does you credit."

"He is not my choice, he is my friend. You don't understand! At home a girl has men friends exactly as she has girl friends. I wonder how I can make it clear to you—we are all like a big family. They might as well be my brothers, many of the men I know; there is not a bit of sentiment in our liking for each other."

"There is no sentiment between you and the man over there?" Allegro twisted the blond down on his upper lip, laughing at her out of the corners of his eyes. "I may be little more than a boy, signorina, but there is one thing that I know quite well when I see it, and that is a person who is in love. Human nature is the same all over the world. Your American men can, after all, have only the same emotions that we have over here. It is as plain as the dome on St. Peter's—you may see it from every direction. That man over there is in love with you! Ecco!"

"He is nothing of the sort! You Italians are mad on the subject. I told you you could not understand. You are different, that is all."

Allegro shrugged his shoulders. "As you please! I tell you he is! And what is more, you are in love with him. After all"—he put up his hand to ward off interruption—"I had much rather think you declined my own suit because your affections were already given before I was so unhappy as to see you, than that, while your heart was still free, you would not consider me."

Nina was so surprised that for a few minutes she was unable to answer. Allegro had never said a word to her about the proposal which had been made by his family. Up to that moment she had thought he did not himself know of it.

"Heart?" she said, bewildered. "Did you put any heart into the offer that was made? None has ever been shown to me."

"Is there a chance of your considering my suit?" He asked it very seriously.

Nina shook her head, and Allegro sighed as though dejected; then, having paid her this compliment, he became cheerful again and his candor was as delicious as it was astonishing.

"Shall I tell you? Yes, I will! If you had said 'yes,' I should have found it very easy to love you. As you won't accept my name, however——"

"You don't love me, is that it?" Nina burst out laughing, and Allegro joined light-heartedly, as he nodded his agreement. Their gayety attracted the attention of their neighbors, and for a while the conversation became general. It was suggestive of the Tower of Babel. Nina had turned to Porter with a remark in English, but Allegro added to it in Italian. Tornik, whose Italian was only slightly more villainous than his English, chimed in across the corner of the table in French, but he soon forgot himself and broke into German. Nina found herself mixing her sentences like Neapolitan ice cream into four languages, until finally she put her hands over her ears and exclaimed, "Attendez, aspetarre, warten sie nur, oh, do let us decide on one tongue at a time!" They all laughed, and then, as is usual among a group of various nationalities, the conversation went on in French.

Finally, Tornik and Allegro got into a discussion about the Austrian influence in Italy, and Nina was left tete-a-tete with Eliot Porter.

She had not met him before coming to Rome. He was a Californian. A Westerner, she put it, but he answered her, "Not at all! I am from the Pacific coast!" He was an agreeable man, much liked in Rome, and he was writing a book on Roman society, a fact that greatly amused the Italians. There was some mild and good-naturedly satirical speculation about what he was going to put in it, but beyond the fact that he acknowledged his subject, nothing was known of either his plot or his characters.

"Do tell me what you are going to put in your book. Is it of to-day, or long ago?"

"The story is to be laid in Rome, the theme society, the time the present."

"How fascinating! Ah, please tell me from whom you have drawn your heroine," Nina continued. "Is she rich or poor? Italian, I suppose, and of course young and beautiful! Is the hero a noble duke or an American on the Prisoner of Zenda or Graustark model?"

"Supposing I should tell you that they were yourself, for the one, and our friend Jack over the way, for the other!"

The coupling of her name with Derby's for the second time in less than half an hour struck Nina, and she became absent-minded; then she said vaguely, "But we are not Italians, either of us."

"Neither are my characters! I will tell you," he said, admitting her to his confidence, "I am going to write of the Expatriates—the people who, to those at home, are always said to be 'abroad.' The story from this side of the water is interesting to me. And the Excelsior is an ideal field for observing them."

"I see!" Then ingenuously, "Are you really going to put Jack in your book?"

Porter smiled, amused. "He hardly corresponds to my aimless nomad wandering hither and yon, with neither ambition nor destination! By the way," he added abruptly, "what do you think of Jack? I am not asking this, mind you, just to make conversation, but because I am interested in him as a national type. I confess I was beginning to think that no woman could care for the men at home as any woman might for the Europeans, until he came along the other day." There was no doubting Porter's enthusiasm as he added, "He gave me back my ideals of my own country! He is real, I tell you. But this trip he is going to take into Sicily——"

"There is no danger in this day, surely!" she interrupted.

"I am not so sure of it, they are pesky devils!" Then, appreciating her uneasiness, he tried to reassure her. "Jack will be all right, he will be well protected. In fact, to show you how little I really fear from the adventure, I am thinking of going with him. My work is getting stale, and a week or two of change of scene would set me up."

"I don't see that your going proves there is no danger. I should never imagine you the type of a coward."

Porter laughed. "Thank you for your good opinion of my type. But I am not at all certain about it myself. If I thought I was going to run any risk of being stabbed in the ribs, or riddled with bullets, I assure you I would preserve my skin very carefully by staying right here. But to go back to John: Did you ever study physiognomy?" He glanced across at Derby as he spoke.

Nina's lips broke into a smile, as she answered, "No. Did you?"

"Yes. I studied that, and palmistry, and graphology, too. Look at John—he has a remarkably interesting head and hand. You are quite wrong," he answered an interjection of Nina's, "his hands are far from ugly! Spatulate fingers show invention and energy. Just look at his thumb! Did you ever see such cool-headed logic or a better balanced will? Why, all in all, I consider him the best-looking man I know! There are plenty with better features, no doubt, but if I'd had my choice as to looks, I should have been his twin."

Nina laughed joyously. "Do you mean it?" It sounded incredible to her, yet she felt strangely pleased—she looked at John from a new point of view. "I think he has a great many good points; there is something strong and admirable about him, but good-looking—never! His features are too uneven, too big-boned."

"Just like a woman!" exclaimed Porter testily. "I suppose you think that apology on your other side a beau ideal!"

Nina glanced critically toward the small features and blond curls of Allegro. "No," she said, "he is much too effeminate."

"Then who is your Adonis?"

"The best-looking man I have ever seen? Well—I think I'd choose the Marchese di Valdo." The pink mounted over her cheeks into her hair, for she thought Porter was going to deride. To her surprise he agreed with her.

"Of his type, yes, he certainly is good; but I prefer John's. I can see how di Valdo would appeal to a girl, though personally I should ask more masculinity, more bone and sinew."

Nina remembered how Giovanni had nearly choked the Great Dane, and she shuddered slightly. "Oh, but he is strong," she exclaimed; "he is strong as a panther! He always makes me think of Bagheera in the Jungle Book."

"Bagheera was warm-blooded; there was truth and affection in him—for Mowgli, at all events. Your friend di Valdo is as cold a proposition as you could find."

Nina thought this last characterization absurd, and said so.

"All right!" Porter answered. "You mark my word. He is a man swayed by the emotions of the moment. He has feeling, yes—but no heart; he has certain inborn principles, but they are racial rather than ethical. His is the code of Noblesse oblige, not of the Golden Rule. In a point of honor he is irreproachable, but it is he, himself, who defines the boundaries of his code."

He paused a moment and continued in a more personal tone: "I don't know you very well, Miss Randolph, but you are a girl from home. And—excuse my frankness—you are one of our great heiresses. I am a stranger to you, and that is why I am going to say something—perhaps all the more forcefully because I have only a racial and not a personal interest: but between marrying Giovanni Sansevero—or that Austrian over yonder—or the golden-headed ornament on your right, and such a man as John Derby, no woman with an ounce of sense could for one minute hesitate. The first, by the gift of kings, are noblemen, but John over there, by the grace of God, is a man!"

Nina was so deeply stirred by his words that she sat for a little while quite motionless, looking down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. Then, before she either looked up or answered, the women left the table.

In the drawing-room, as the other women lighted their cigarettes, Nina stood leaning her cheek on her hand as it rested against the mantel—and for some time she gazed down into the fire, while Porter's words echoed and reechoed through her mind. When she turned away from the fire her attention was caught by an Englishwoman who had thrown herself full length on the sofa. Her person was a curious mixture of cleanliness and untidiness, her face was even polished by soap and scrubbing, but her frock, although probably quite clean, looked anything but fresh, and lying down among the cushions had not improved her hair, which had been frowzily frizzed anyway. Nina would have thought Lady Dorothy an impossible person were it not for the "Lady" which, as Carpazzi put it, "was pushed before the name."

In the meanwhile Lady Dorothy went off into a long disquisition upon the advisability of having couches at formal banquets as in the old Roman days. The illustration which she was at the moment affording was scarcely, to Nina's mind, encouraging to her proposition. She smoked rapidly and let the cigarette ashes spill all down the side of her neck.

"Isn't it funny what a little place the world is?" babbled the late Miss Titherington, cutting short Lady Dorothy's discourse. "Here we are, you and I and John—just the same as though we were back in Bar Harbor! What a lamb of a child you used to be! Only do you remember the day you nearly drowned me? And he had to rescue us both!"

"Just fancy that!" said the Lady Dorothy from her corner of the sofa. "However did it happen?"

"The water in Maine is so cold one dare hardly go in. Nina was a little girl, she got a cramp, and clutched me around the neck."