In the branch office of Shayne & Co., in the Via Condotti, Rome, Mr. Shayne arose from his desk, rearranged his diamond scarf-pin in his gray satin Ascot tie, flicked two imaginary particles of dust from his tight-fitting cutaway coat, whisked his silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and in again, so that the lavender border was visible, cleared his throat, and stood in an attitude of agreeable expectancy.
Directly the door of his private room was discreetly opened, admitting a square-jawed, beetle-browed man, heavy and ugly—a coarse type, yet not without distinction. The two men did not shake hands. Mr. Christopher Shayne bowed blandly, deferentially, yet not servilely, and again he cleared his throat. The visitor nodded as though there upon an affair of business that he was anxious to have terminated as speedily as possible.
"Will you be seated?—I think you will find this chair comfortable." Mr. Shayne indicated a chair with a wave of his hand. "The letter which I have from your Excellency is a trifle indefinite. But I take it that you have something of more than ordinary importance to communicate." He finishedhis sentence by giving his mustache a thoughtful twirl upward, first on one side and then on the other.
The Duke Scorpa let his rat-like eyes rest a moment upon the alert face of Mr. Shayne before he answered: "You said once in my presence that you had long wanted to acquire a Raphael. I am in a position at present to offer you one."
"A Raphael!" Shayne showed genuine surprise. "I do not remember one in your collection."
"It is not in my own collection. Before giving you further details, however, I must be assured that you are still anxious to purchase, and also that you will observe strict secrecy with regard to it."
"In answer to the first, such an opportunity is beyond question of interest to me; in answer to the second, my reputation should be a guarantee of my discretion. I hope the picture you have in view is not the Asanai one—for there is much doubt as to its being genuine."
"No, the one I speak of is the Sansevero Madonna."
In spite of himself Mr. Shayne blew a long whistle. "The Sansevero Madonna with the doves!" he reiterated. "Thatisa prize! I am astonished, though——" It was on his tongue to say that he had thought the Prince Sansevero beyond the suspicion of illegal sale of treasures; but, checking himself in time, he finished his sentence—"that he should be willing to part with it. Besides, it is a dangerous thing for him to sell, on account of its celebrity."
"So I told him." The Duke Scorpa lied perfectly. "But it is better, after all, to sell one thing that will bring in a good price than to sell a number of things that bring in little, and yet incur the same amount of risk in getting them out of the country." Here the duke's manner became almost confidential. "As I told you, I am of course acting merely in the interest of my friend the Prince Sansevero. Selling against the law of my country would be abhorrent to me personally. But my friend, poor fellow, is hard pressed for money. And, as he argues, the picture is his, and has been in his family since long before our government ever made such laws. He considers he has a right—or should have—to dispose of property that is his own. The government would pay not more than half what you will give me, I am sure."
"Of course, of course. I have long coveted that Raphael. On the other hand, as I said, the picture is so very well known and so excellent that it could hardly be palmed off as a copy. Also the canvas is large, which will make it very difficult to conceal. It is still at Torre Sansevero, I suppose?"
"No, it is here in Rome. It is removed from the frame and is at present in my palace. I suppose the offer that you once told me you would make still holds good?"
The American looked shrewd. "Did I name asum? I do not remember. Ah, yes. But that was for a very rich man who has since bought a Velasquez. I doubt if he will buy any more."
Scorpa rose as though to leave. "My friend wants five hundred thousand lire."
Mr. Shayne laughed scornfully. "Preposterous!" he said, and from that they argued for nearly half an hour; but in the end it was settled that the picture should change hands, and the price agreed upon was two hundred and fifty thousand lire.
In the matter of payment the duke was punctilious about protecting his friend the Prince Sansevero from the consequences of his transgression of the law. Shayne agreed to make his payments in cash, so that Sansevero's name should not appear on the checks.
But Christopher Shayne was more than skeptical about the duke's disinterestedness. "There is a rake-off for this one somewhere," he thought. He also thought that for once he had been mistaken in his judgment of character. Sansevero had been, in his opinion, a man who would sooner starve than defraud the government. So strongly did he believe this that although he had, as the duke knew, long coveted the Raphael, he would never have dared to approach Sansevero.
After the duke had gone Shayne went out and personally sent a code cable announcing his purchase.
"Well," he said to himself, "it's no business of mine. But duke or no duke, he is a slick one. Idon't like him. I can tell, though, whether it is the Sansevero picture as soon as I lay my eyes on it—but what gets me is that the prince chose such a go-between. Why didn't he come to me direct?" He didn't puzzle over that long, however; planning to get the picture out of Italy occupied his attention. An excellent idea presented itself: some furniture ordered by his firm should carry it in a sofa, and his partner should be advised by cipher letter to remove the picture. J. B. Randolph would buy it, without doubt—no need to tell him how it came into Shayne & Co.'s hands. They could swear they bought it in London. Plausible stories of masterpieces discovered in out of the way corners were easily enough manufactured. So these thoughts all being to his utmost satisfaction, he went whistling down the street.
The Duke Scorpa at the same time was being driven cheerfully homeward. That had been a stroke, that idea of pretending he was merely the intermediary. He had got the picture for a loan of one hundred thousand, and had one hundred and fifty thousand clear profit. There was nothing to show his transaction with Sansevero. No money had passed between them, not even a scrap of paper. He had torn up the prince's I. O. U., and that was all the evidence there had been. Christopher Shayne, besides, was a shrewd man and reliable, and one who never had been caught in a questionable transaction. To be sure, Scorpa had given Sansevero hisword (but again there was no proof), that he would let him retrieve the picture at an advanced price that should be merely the accrued compound interest on the money lent. In case of his being able to reclaim it, Scorpa would pretend that the picture was burnt or stolen—time enough to cross bridges when he came to them. But that chance was beyond all probability. There was no way for Sansevero ever to secure enough money to get back the picture—unless, indeed, his younger brother Giovanni should marry the great American heiress who was on her way to Italy for the winter.
"I hardly think that likely," said the Duke Scorpa to himself, as he stroked his heavy chin with his fat hand, "for I intend to annex that little fortune myself."
It was a few days after Nina's arrival in Italy; one of the glorious mornings when the famous Sansevero gardens were full of golden light, bringing into high relief the creamy marble of statues that in other centuries had been white. Against the deep waxy green of shrubs and hedges, the fountains seemed to be tossing liquid diamonds; and beyond the marble balustrades of the descending terraces, the hills rolled away in soft gray billows of young olive leaves and powdered slopes of blossoming orange branches. In contrast with this background of green and marble and roses and flowers and fountains stood Nina reaching up to pick a pink camellia. In front of her, the princess was looking vaguely into the finder of a camera.
"Now what shall I do? Just press the bulb and let go?"
"W-w-ait a moment until my teeth stop chattering!"
Nina had taken off her coat and was wearing a dress as summery in appearance as the garden. "All right, Auntie. This ought to be lovely—I hope gooseflesh and a blue nose won't show."
The picture taken, she lost no time in getting back into her long fur coat again and wrapping it tightly around her, still shivering.
"I do hope the pictures will be good—I am going to write under them 'In a rose garden at Christmas Time.' I shall not tell that I never was so cold in my life as at this minute. What I can't understand is how the flowers are hypnotized into believing it warm weather. It is every bit as cold as New York, yet if we were to ask these same shrubs to live in our gardens, they would hang their heads and die at the mere suggestion." Nina wanted to take snap shots of the princess, but the latter refused to remove her coat, and the incongruity of furs dispelled the midsummer illusion. Slipping her hand through her aunt's arm she drew her into a brisk walk. The temperature of Italy is low only by comparison with its summery appearance, and by the time they reached the terrace end she was in a glow.
She looked up at the irregular stone pile of the old castle, against which semi-tropical vines climbed so high as partially to cover even the great square tower; and involuntarily she exclaimed, "It is so beautiful, so beautiful—it almost hurts; even the color of the sunshine—the brilliancy, yet the softness—and then to be with you!" Enthusiastically she pressed her aunt's arm.
"But tell me," she went on, "what rooms are these along here? Do I know them? Let me see—mine is far around on that side over there, isn't it?"
"That is your room in the corner, the one by the fountain of the dolphins."
Just then there was the sound of tramping on the gravel walk. Nina turned, and the next instant her curiosity was aroused. "Who in the world were all these people?" As her aunt paid no attention, she repeated her question, and the princess casually glanced in their direction. It was probably a party of Cook's tourists. Yes, she recognized the conductor.
Nina watched the party with increasing interest. "Look how funny that little woman is. When the guide tells her anything, she follows his directions as though he had a string tied to her nose." Nina began to laugh, and the princess turned to see two of the tourists, who, like rodents, seemed to be judging a statue of Hermes entirely by the sense of smell. The party came nearer, and the princess turned away. But Nina, alert, exclaimed, "The guide is pointing you out to them."
"Very likely; one gets used to that. Come, let us go on; they will be all over here in a few minutes." The crowd craned after her as she went down the terrace, followed by Nina.
"Do you mean to say you give up your own home like this to strangers?" the girl asked. "It must be a perfect nuisance!"
"It is all a matter of custom," the princessanswered. "Besides, the people don't annoy us. They go usually on the lower terraces; at most they come up to the old courtyard galleries, perhaps mount the tower to see the view, or go into the catacombs."
At the bare mention of catacombs Nina was greatly excited, and looked eagerly toward the tourists who were going under the archway where the drawbridge once had been, but the Princess showed very little interest. They were merely underground passageways that were probably used by slaves, although there was one that undoubtedly was built as a means of escape. It ran many kilometers and ended in a cave in the forest. "Oh, come! Please come!" Nina fairly dragged her aunt after the party to the steep dark entrance leading from an old stone dungeon that was falling in ruins. The tourists were descending in an awed silence in which nothing could be heard but the groping shuffle of cautious feet, broken by the hollow echo of the guide's voice reciting his sing-song jargon of what he supposed to be English. He held a lantern that revealed a long alleyway of crumbling, mud-colored stone. Nina tried to make out something of his glib discourse, but soon gave it up.
"What is he talking about?" she whispered.
The princess disentangled the tradition from the overburdening names and dates: those scratches he was pointing out on the walls were supposed to be a cryptic message from some refugees in needof provisions. It was not a very authentic story, though.
As the princess spoke in English, two tourists detached themselves from the huddled group around the guide and sidled up to her.
"Can you tell me," asked one, a wizened small person who, in the flickering light of the lantern, was strongly suggestive of a mouse, "are there many buried here? The guide has been explaining, and I am stupid, I know, but for the life of me I can't understand a word he says." Her voice was a little dejected, and altogether apologetic.
"We do not think there are any," the princess answered.
The little tourist blinked, hesitated, and then asked, confidentially, "Did the guide say you were the princess of this castle? We couldn't make out."
By this time two others, inquisitive and gaping, joined the spokeswoman, who, as the princess assented, exclaimed, "My!"
That ended the conversation for the time being; and the party trooped on in silence. But after a little the small mousy one's curiosity overcame her diffidence. "Land, it'd be queer to live in a place like this! Do you come down here much, Your Highness?"
Nina nearly giggled, but the princess replied, "I have been down only once or twice. There is no use to which we can put these passageways nowadays. There was a deep pit that descended from one ofthe upper rooms of the castle through a trap in the floor. The bottom of it was far below here, but it is all done away with and cemented over now."
"You know, Your Highness," returned the little tourist, now glibly at ease, "I think it'd be a good place for growing mushrooms."
The guide interrupted by mounting a pair of stairs and holding up his lantern with the order to "come this way." They all stumbled up the crumbling steps after him and suddenly found themselves behind the altar of a chapel that stood at the far end of the garden.
"For pity's sake!" cried the little tourist, her eyes again blinking—this time at the light. "I never was in such a wonderful place in all my life. My! It won't seem like anything at all to go down cellar at home after I get back! Is this the way you go to meeting? Oh, no—you said you hadn't been down often. Maybe this is the way to go when it rains! It don't rain much here, does it? My, but that's an idea—to go underground to church. I wonder how ever you get used to it." And then irrelevantly she added, "All these beautiful churches over here in Yurrup, not a pew in one of 'em."
"They bring out these kneeling chairs for service," the princess said, pointing to a number against one wall of the chapel.
Again all the tourist could say was her ever ready "My!"
"Would you like to see some of the castle?" theprincess asked. "There is a picture gallery not usually opened to visitors, also some apartments with frescoes that are worth seeing." Then to the guide, "You may take them into the west wing." The tourists looked variously, according to their several dispositions; the little one beamed.
"Oh, that's real kind of Your Highness," she exclaimed, her small gray person fluttering, more than ever like a mouse. "I must say that's real kind. I just dote on pictures. Do you like crayons? Well, I like oils best myself, but there are some who have a taste for crayons. The photographer's son—out where I live—he is real talented. He did some beautiful portraits. Folks thought he ought to come over here right away and study art. But others thought there was just as good art right at home. Now, what'd you say?"
Her good intention quite won the princess, and her accent warmed her heart in a way that Nina would have been at a loss to understand.
They had reached the west door, and the Princess sent a gardener around to the main entrance for the porter to bring his keys. The old man came quickly enough, fumbling in the pocket of his greatcoat, but he did not look at all edified at the whim of Her Excellency which allowed a lot of strangers to track mud through the best rooms of the Castle. He preceded the party, however, with all signs of deference, unlocking doors as they went.
The little New Englander was meekly trailingafter the guide, leaving Nina and her aunt for the moment alone.
"Oh, but these are beautiful rooms, Aunt Eleanor! Why don't you use them?"
"We do in summer sometimes, but one needs a staff of servants to keep them up. Besides in winter it is impossible to get them warm."
"Then why," Nina spoke as though she had discovered an obviously simple solution, "don't you have the proper heating put in? You won't mind if I ask you something, will you?"
"Ask what you like, dearest."
"Why don't you make yourself more comfortable? For instance, why don't you have modern plumbing put in? And don't you prefer electric light?"
The Princess smiled as though she had never felt the need of any of these things. "You have left the land of modern improvements and come over to the land of romance!" For a moment she kept the illusion, but the next she seemed to change her mind, for she said practically and with no veiling of the facts: "Quite apart from the difficulty of putting pipes and wires through these thick stone walls, even if every modern improvement were already installed, the cost would make it prohibitive to attempt either heating or lighting."
Nina gasped, "I don't understand! You don't have to think of such a thing as the expense of keeping warm, do you?"
"Indeed we do. Fuel is a very serious item."
"But, you have plenty of money, surely. I thought living abroad—especially in Italy—was cheap."
"I did have a bigger income than now—one does not get as good a rate of interest as one used." She colored a little at the false inference and dwelt with more emphasis on the next sentence.
"When we go to Rome we spend much more money; we have all the rooms open there, and we have a great number of servants—in short we live like princes." She smiled brightly. "But you see in order to do that we have to live quietly and save during the rest of the year."
Nina looked perplexed. "That sounds very queer," she said. "I should think you would even things up and be more comfortable all the time."
"Then we would have nothing. It would be additional expenditure on things that don't matter, and no money left for things that do. Opening these rooms, for instance, would not greatly add to our pleasure. After all, we can only sit in one room at a time. To have many guests and motors and horses for hunting, and to have big shooting parties—all that is an expense not to be thought of. It amuses us more to go to Rome, so we prefer to save for nine months in order to live well the other three."
Nina was trying to do a sum in mental arithmetic; she could not quite make the diminished interest account for her aunt's evident lack of income, but did not like to ask for more details. However, somethingelse happened that diverted her attention. They went through innumerable rooms, always to the distant droning sing-song of the guide's explanations.
Finally they came to the picture gallery. It was not a notable collection, with one or two exceptions; and one of these exceptions was strikingly absent. The guide left the group and approached the princess, exclaiming, "Excellency! The Raphael!"
"It has been sent to be repaired." Her hesitation was scarcely perceptible. "The background was sinking a little."
The man quite forgot himself and in his excitement dared a retort—"It was one of the best preserved Raphaels extant." But the expression in the princess' straight-gazing eyes held his further speech in check, and though she said no word the man cringed.
"Pardon, Excellency," he said, and went back to explain to the waiting group that the great painting of the Sansevero collection at that moment was being carefully examined, by experts, as to its preservation. Nevertheless, there was a look in his face that caused Nina to turn to her aunt with an apprehension, that gave rise to a vague suspicion that the princess, who was walking slowly, her head very high and her beautiful shoulders well back, was struggling to hide some strong emotion. She thought later that she might have been mistaken, for a moment later her aunt asked with her usual composure, "Have you a watch on? What time is it?"
Nina consulted the diamond and enamel trinkethanging on a chain around her neck. "It is ten minutes to one. Is it lunch time?"
"Nearly. Are you hungry? We are not having lunch to-day until half after. I have a surprise for you."
"For me? What is it to be?"
"My young brother-in-law, Giovanni, comes home to-day. I expect him on the twelve-thirty train. Your uncle has gone to the station to fetch him—they ought to arrive at any moment."
Nina's face looked brightly expectant. "Tell me something about him! Is he half as good-looking as his pictures?"
"Ah? So she has been examining his photographs!"
"Of course!" Nina laughed. "Oh, please tell me something about him! Does he speak English? French? Or shall I have to struggle in broken Italian? Is he like Uncle Sandro?"
"Wait until you see him."
"At least tell me does he speak English?"
"He speaks beautiful French."
"Which means, I suppose, that he speaks monkey English!"
But the princess vouchsafed no reply.
"Well, but really, Idothink you might tell me something! Is he attractive?"
The Princess assumed a tantalizing air—"That also I am going to leave you to find out when you see him. At all events he is young—that is compared toyour uncle and me. It has been dull for you, darling, with no one your own age."
Nina interrupted her reproachfully. "Don't you dare! To hear you, one might suppose you were a hundred. I don't care a bit whether Don Giovanni is a Calaban or an Antinous—All the same," she laughed, "had I better tidy my hair—or does it not matter?"
The tourists were all filing out of the castle now, and as the porter locked the doors, the princess shook hands with the little American.
"Thank you, Your Highness," she said, "you have been real kind. We—I didn't think, when I left home that I was going to be talking this way to princesses. I never dreamed they were like you; and you talk beautiful English, too."
With a warm impulse the princess laid her left hand over the cotton-gloved one in her right.
"Ah, but I was an American myself," she said, "and it does me good to see a country-woman."
They parted. Again the guide made a deep reverence to "Her Excellency," but to Nina the look in his eyes seemed both sly and suspicious.
In the meantime, the pony-cart carrying the prince and his brother was jogging slowly up the hills from the station.
Don Giovanni Sansevero—by his own title the Marchese di Valdo—was still on the hither side of thirty, but if a reputation for being "irresistible to women" goes for anything, he must by this time havehad some experience in their ways. At all events, his appearance so tallied with hearsay that, whether founded upon fact or not, the reputation remained.
He was supple and beautifully built, his bones were small and finely jointed, his features chiseled with classic regularity—later on his lips might grow coarse, but as yet they were merely full. The chief characteristic of his expression was its mobility, but it was the mobility of an actor who knows every emotion that the muscles of a face can command. Sansevero's face, also changeable as an April day, was the spontaneous expression of unconscious mood. Giovanni was of a type to smile sweetly when most angry, or to assume an air of sulkiness when at heart he might be well content. Just now, with an assumption of extreme indifference, he turned to his brother.
"What is she like, this heiress of yours whom you are so anxious to have me marry?" he asked. "Plain, stupid, a nonentity?—So much the better—those make the easy wives to manage. Give me a woman with little real success—I mean, one who has seen only the imitation fire that is lighted when man pursues with reason and not with feeling. The American men make it easy for the rest of us—they are what you call curtain raisers in the play of love. They keep the gallery busy until the entrance of the hero. I hope she is not a beauty."
"Per Bacco, how you do talk!" interrupted the prince. "I have no chance to answer. Miss Randolph is not a beauty; but she issimpatica; she has an air, achic."
"So much the better, so long as thechicis one of appearance and not of personality. I don't want my wife to be a siren." Suddenly he laughed and hit his brother's knee. "But what nonsense! Imagine a cold American miss having the power to make a man's pulses leap! Oh, don't make a face like that—I am not speaking of my honored sister-in-law; she is indeed of the true type of our mother." Mechanically both men indicated the sign of the cross at the word "mother."
"But," continued Giovanni, "I am not exactly worthy of a saint—it would not suit my disposition. It is bad enough associating always with good Brother Antonio as it is. By the way, where is he?"
He gave a shrill whistle and looked back down the road for the gray figure of his inseparable friend and companion: not a monk as the name indicated, but a Great Dane. A distant cloud of dust proclaimed that the whistle had been heard. "Poor Sant Antonio!" he called as soon as the dog had caught up, "Where have you been? I suppose you were meditating along life's highway. No," he continued, "it were best I did not pretend to be better than I am; my good monk would not absolve me else. Still, do you know, sometimes I seriously doubt even Brother Antonio's morals!" He shrugged his shoulders and laughed in great delight. Sansevero seemed undecided whether to be shocked or amused; ordinarilyhe would have laughed easily enough, but Giovanni in some way had seemed to involve Eleanor in his levity.
"Well," continued Giovanni, "I suppose at least Miss America, not being a Catholic, will make no objections to Sant Antonio's short-comings!"
At this Sansevero bristled, "Giovanni, I will ask you not to air your irreligious remarks about that dog with an unseemly name, in connection with the family of my wife."
For answer Giovanni blew a whistle into the air.
Sansevero grew sulky. "I warn you! Don't let Leonore hear you make remarks that she might think slighting about her darling! She is like her own child to her!"
For a few moments both men were silent. Giovanni's face was no longer mocking; he was watching the beautiful lope of his huge dog. Sansevero looked straight ahead, quite pensively for him. "Poor Leonore," he said at last. "It is often such as she who have no children!" Unconsciously he sighed.
Giovanni smiled, "I don't see what she wants of another child than you!"
"And you will inherit——"
"Please! I am not quite so bad as that. Believe me, I should rejoice for you if you had children. Leonore would have made a wonderful mother. Even I might be respectable if a woman such as she loved me as she loves you. But," he grew flippant again, "to marry one of those nose-in-the-air, soulless,school-teacher prudes—Never! And in any event, my dear, I am not so sure I want to marry your heiress. I am very well as I am!" He shrugged his shoulders. A moment later, though, he put a question. "What is her first name?—I have forgotten."
"Nina."
"Nina! Really a charming name, that! One that can be said without breaking consonants against the teeth. There was a girl once, very pretty, but she was called—I can never pronounce it—E-d-i-t-h—those are the letters. But Ni-na! It has a delicious sound." He let it slip over his tongue. Then he put his head on one side and asked quizzically, "How much has she?"
Sansevero looked up quickly; he hesitated a moment, then answered stiffly: "She has a great fortune, but she is also my niece."
Giovanni raised his eyebrows, and then burst into shouts of laughter.
"What has come over you? It was you who suggested the match! You know as well as I that my debts don't disturb me in the least. It is quite easy always to—borrow, if one must pay."
Don Giovanni arrived on Tuesday, and Saturday found him out on the terrace leaning over the balustrade beside Nina. His expression was unusually animated, for he was making the most of his first chance to talk to her without the presence of a third person. Not that they were alone—the Princess Sansevero was too much of an Italian to leave a young girl for a moment unchaperoned. But she was walking about with the head gardener, discussing the possibilities of saving a grove of cypress trees that showed signs of dying; and though she kept the young people well in sight, she could not overhear their conversation. Giovanni's big dog, St. Anthony, was lying outstretched in the sunshine.
In the full light, Nina had ample opportunity for observing that her companion was quite as good-looking in detail as in general effect; and the rhythmic inflection of his voice—he spoke in French—she thought truly attuned to his surroundings. He was one of those who, like Italy itself, give to strangers only the suggestion of their meaning, and he interested Nina chiefly as a new unsolved problem.
Gradually the habitual sleepy expression had returned to his eyes, and his voice grew dreamy. "We of Italy," he was saying, "live, endure, die, if need be—always for the same reason—woman and love! Your men in America"—his teeth glittered as he smiled—"tell me, Mademoiselle, do you believe they know what it is to love? Do they hide it, perhaps, from us Europeans?"
"I should think," answered Nina sagely, "that love means more to our men than to you." (A remark that John Derby had made came into her mind as she spoke: "You will find your own countrymen go in for the real thing, where the foreigner spends all his time talking about it.")
Don Giovanni was too thoroughly a European to become argumentative. "You see, I speak only from hearsay," he continued, with that air of agreeing with her which only the Latin possesses. "I have always been led to suppose that love plays a very small part in the lives of your countrymen." He held the thread of the conversation, but his manner said plainly that he only waited humbly to be enlightened. "I should have said," he went on, "an illustration of love in my country as contrasted with yours is shown in the gardens—just as our gardens bloom all the year, so love blooms always in our hearts; flowers and love, they go together; nowhere in the world are they so perfect as in Italy."
"So cultivated?" asked Nina.
He took no notice of the quip. "If to cultivate is to think of and to nurture, to strive alwaysfor greater perfection, then, yes, let us say cultivated."
There was a challenge; there was also a look of pity that annoyed her. It was this that she resented. She felt that she was being enmeshed in an invisible web, and she sought for a means of escape. Seeing none she might be sure of, she dropped the figurative speech and took refuge in platitudes.
"In America we admire a man for what he does—over here you do nothing. Each day for you is the same. You spend your time as a woman might, unless you go into the army, the church, or diplomacy. For instance, you, yourself, what is your ambition? Is there anything you are trying to do?"
Indolently he shrugged his shoulders, and with a half-lazy arrogance he answered, "Why should I try to create a personal and trivial future, when I can, without striving, merely survive from a far more glorious past? Listen, Mademoiselle, do you think as much can be accomplished by one short generation as by many? For instance, could a garden such as this be produced in the lifetime of one man?" He waved his arm in a circular motion. "It is not alone its plan and its fountains, and its green shrubbery that make it what it is, but the history of human lives that is planted in its every turn and corner. The gardens of America are but newly born from the minds of your landscape architects; in most of them the trees are but newly planted. This gardenwas already stately with ilex and cypress when the first white men of North America were sowing a little corn. How can you feel romance in a garden where there is no tradition save of the hours a few laborers have spent in digging?"
Suddenly a look of real ardor came into his face, an animation into his expression that gave a new charm to his words. "On this terrace where we now stand, leaning upon the marble of this very railing, countless men who were heroes, poets, philosophers, and fair women who were their sweethearts, have looked, as we do, over the hills laden with blossoming trees. Up that path yonder to the monastery have gone pilgrims, sinners, martyrs, and many lovers to have their vows blessed, or to find a haven for broken hearts. In thealléeof cypress trees have walked many of the great lovers of Italy's romance. From this terrace end Beatrice herself is said to have thrown a rose of that very bush's parent stem to her immortal lover. Every corner of the garden holds its story of meetings that made of it a paradise, of partings that made of it an inferno. What is paradise, but love? Inferno, but the sorrow of love? Down before us, and even up here on this terrace, scenes have been enacted in feud and in peace, horrible scenes of bloodshed and cruelty, and again scenes of splendor—gatherings of church, ceremonials of state, but chiefly scenes of love—some beautiful and happy, others no less beautiful because they were tragic. Shall I tell you some of the stories?"
Nina nodded an eager assent; Giovanni's manner held her completely.
"Almost where you are standing, Cecilia Sansevero was stabbed by Guido Corlone before he killed himself, so that they might be together in the next world. Out of that window, the third from the end, another daughter of our house descended by a silk ladder. They—she and her lover—took the path directly below here; the guards saw them. This happened just beside the statue yonder. He drew his sword and stood before her, but the guards were too many, and he was killed. She had poison in a locket that she wore, and almost before they could drag her arms from about her lover's neck, she also was dead."
"Horrible!" cried Nina. Her face, mobile as Giovanni's own, had unconsciously reflected, in changing expressions, the progress of his narrative. "To think that in such a place as this such things really happened." She shuddered, then added, "But, Don Giovanni, are there no pleasant stories? Please think of some."
"Oh, any number. Once there was a small house in the valley—a lodge it would be called now. A very pretty girl lived there. This time it was the son of our house, a young, hot-headed fellow like all of us." Giovanni let just enough fire gleam in his eyes to give Nina a glimpse of another phase of him. "Well, this son—whose name was the same as mine, Giovanni, a Prince Sansevero—he was mad aboutthis girl. He would marry her or he would take his life. She was the star of his destiny, the crown of his life, and all the rest of it. They were going to send her away—she was to go into a cloister; he was locked up in the castle. But the old custodian, who adored the boy, let him escape by the underground passage. He came out in the church. She had gone there to pray, knowing nothing of the underground way—it was kept a profound secret in those days. As the girl knelt, Giovanni appeared suddenly beside the altar. Her duenna thought him an apparition, and the two fled up to the monastery—that one you see from here."
"And then——?" said Nina breathlessly.
"The Father Abbot relented and married them."
Nina tried to discern the path to the monastery; in her imagination she saw them hurrying along on the night of their escape.
"And then? In the end what became of them?"
"She bore him fifteen children; thirteen of them were girls."
Giovanni's manner was so casual as he said this that Nina laughed long and deliciously. He swung himself lightly over the balustrade and gathered her a long-stemmed rose from the bush whose early branches were supposed to have known the touch of Beatrice. Perhaps the legend was untrue, but his action, like the afternoon, held much that was alluring. Something of this allure lay in Giovanni's having the same name as the people he told about.Something, too, in the carelessness, and yet the pride, of his telling, made his tales enchanting, and seemed in some way to include his own personality in the chain of romance as its final link. The garden was spread before her. The underground passage she knew, and it wound directly beneath her feet. The chapel, the statue, the ruins of the little temple, the monastery encircling like a low crown the summit of the distant mountain, all were before her; and beside her was a son of the same race, of the same blood. She wondered vaguely why it was so much more apparent in Don Giovanni than in her uncle the prince. Prince Sansevero seemed quite modern; the Marchese di Valdo, though more modern actually than his brother, still seemed to keep his touch on the age that was past.
"Do these old legends please you, Mademoiselle? Or are you too restless? Too progressive? Americans, like the horse Pegasus, leap into the air without any need of foundation to stand on. We, over here, build, like the coral reefs, slowly perhaps, but always from the foundation up."
"I think," said Nina slowly; "it is the mystery of the past that makes it so wonderful. We never can know quite enough about it. All legends are like pictures seen through a fog; it lifts and shows a glimpse, then as quickly closes in again. I always want to know what happened next."
As she said this, she realized that she was moreor less making an allegorical description of Giovanni himself. He was like his country and its traditions, revealing himself only in glimpses. He attracted her immensely through his subtle impersonality underlying all that was seemingly personal. She could not fathom his depth, nor determine his shallowness—she did not even guess which it might be. She was irresistibly drawn to him; yet she was on her guard, as one who, looking down from a great height, in fear of vertigo clings to the parapet over which he leans. The parapet she clung to was her own good American common sense. Yet she feared she did not know what. A little gleam in Giovanni's dark eyes, a curious, deliberate, intentionally produced expression of his smiling lips, swept over her sensibilities with a feeling that was as terrifying as it was delicious—and both perhaps because it was strange.
A little look—like triumph—flickered in his face; he laughed joyously. "Mademoiselle, you are—adorable!" he said.
Christmas and New Year's passed, and the Sansevero household moved to Rome. The princess was impatient to have Nina meet people, but from the first glimpse of the domed City its immortal charm claimed the American girl, and for a little while she had neither time nor inclination for anything but sight-seeing. She fairly hungered for history and tradition, and she soon made the discovery that if Don Giovannididnothing, he at leastknewa great deal.
She marveled at his memory. He seemed to have every name and date in the history of Rome and Italian art at the tip of his tongue. One afternoon they were going through the apartments of the Borgias; the princess, tired out with sight-seeing, was sitting at the edge of the room, and Giovanni was following Nina and pointing out the story illustrated in the frescoes.
"I have found at least one thing you could do!" she laughed. "You'd make a wonderful guide for Cook's."
But he was not at all amused by this sally; in fact, he let her see that he was annoyed. This same sort of unexpected response had baffled herseveral times before. Any American youth would have fallen into the manner of a guide at once. She remembered that John Derby on one occasion, at a County fair, had insisted upon climbing on the stand of a barker and was the success of the show. On the other hand, this Italian prince appreciated things which John Derby would have brushed aside. He was a delightful companion, the most delightful she had ever known, but every now and then he became suddenly and inexplicably offended—and always over some stupid trifle, like this suggestion of hers about Cook's.
"I only meant," she ventured appeasingly, "that you hold all of Rome's history in the palm of your hand. Is there anything that you don't know?"
His gesture was expressive. He raised his eyebrows and opened both hands palms upward. "I am Roman—since a thousand years."
Nina changed the subject. "I wish," she said, "that they had wheeling chairs with head rests. I have a crick in my neck and my eyes are going crossed from looking so much at ceilings."
Giovanni's ill temper had been for a moment only. He smiled now and whimsically suggested that they write to the director of the Vatican asking that litters be provided. Why not? He grew quite enthusiastic over his description of how charming she would look between tall negro bearers, with a little black boy trotting beside her, carrying along fan—no, in place of the fan he should carry a little stove.
"My idea was not half so picturesque," she laughed in answer. "I think I had a dentist's chair in mind—a red fuzzy plush one on wheels."
"And with me to push it?" He said it eagerly enough. Here was a contradiction of his late irritation! She did not dare, as a matter of fact, to answer; his melodies and his discords were too easily transposed.
She turned her attention to the fresco before her; it was one with the portrait of the kneeling Borgia.
"He looks like a burglar!" she exclaimed with a shudder. Then she hesitated, but Giovanni's mood being too uncertain to take into consideration she finished her sentence, "Do you know who he looks like—? The Duke Scorpa."
Again he was angry. "Please, Miss Randolph, do not say anything of that sort."
"But why shouldn't I?" She colored under his reproof, but held to her point.
"Because you are of the household of the Sansevero. A little remark—even so little as a tenth of that, might be imprudent. Rome is to-day almost what it was. There still is a very frail bridge uniting the Scorpas and the Sanseveros; the ravine is always there; a torrent from the glacier may descend at any time."
"Then I shall say it in a whisper! He lookslike a burglar, and like a cut-throat and—like Scorpa!"
Giovanni scowled. "I warn you, Mademoiselle, be prudent!" A note of tension in his voice brought Nina to a sudden halt.
"There is no one here but Aunt Eleanor—I doubt if even she can hear."
"In Rome it would not be the first time if walls had ears."
"I am sorry," she said so simply, so candidly, that Giovanni was charmed. He became light and amusing. He elaborated the legends of the frescoes with the lives of the painters' until she felt as though they were yet living. Finally they reached the side of the room where the princess was waiting. There was no impatience in her voice, but she looked tired, and Nina cried penitently:
"Ah, Aunt Eleanor! Why did you not call me sooner? I get so carried away by all the things I see, and the tales Don Giovanni tells me, that I have no sense of time."
They descended the stairs to the inner court of the Vatican, where they found their carriage, an old-fashioned C-spring landeau, all very dignified and perfectly appointed, and in striking contrast to the pony-cart in which the princess was trundled about at Torre Sansevero.
By the time they crossed the Ponte S. Angelo the color had come back a little into the princess's face. Nina, with no sign of fatigue, sat brightlyalert, while Giovanni opposite, prattled ceaselessly, except for the interruption necessitated by his constantly taking off his hat as his sister-in-law bowed to passing acquaintances.
They had not far to go along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele before they came to the dingy pile of yellow stone that for centuries had borne the name of Palazzo Sansevero. The landeau turned under one of its three broad archways, and entered the courtyard. A plain stone stairway, worn and dingy like the rest of the façade, led into a vestibule of unpromising darkness. Theportiere, however, was very gorgeous and imposing in his knee breeches, white silk stockings, gold-trimmed coat, and his three-cornered hat with the prince's cockade at the side. He moved majestically down the steps, carrying a silver-headed mace, like a drum-major's, and saluted as the "nobilities" entered the palace. They ascended to a vast stone hall with a grand stairway at its further end, that quickly effaced the impression of the entrance. From an antechamber, they passed through five or six rooms hung with tapestries and paintings, and adorned with sculptures, until they arrived at the one where the princess really lived. This last was a huge, dignified, mellow, and splendid apartment, in every way worthy of the palace in which it stood, and of the great lady who occupied it now, no less than of all the great ladies who had occupied it in the past. In its present furnishingsthere were deep sofas with light and table arrangement, so that one might lounge and read and at the same time be near the great open fire. Many bibelots of silver and porcelain made a contrast to the other rooms, that were more like museum galleries; and everywhere—here as in the country—were flowers and the army of autographed photographs marching across tables and banked high against the walls.
As soon as the family had entered, the tea-tray was brought in and placed near the fire. Following the Roman custom, according to which the daughter of the house pours the tea, the princess motioned Nina to fill the office, and she herself sat at her desk and began rapidly writing on a pad of paper. Giovanni carried tea and muffins to her, while Nina poured out her own cup and helped herself to a third cake.
"Are these really so good?" she asked half wistfully. "Or are even these little cakes seemingly delicious only because they are in Rome? I am sure the cook at home made plenty that were every bit as good!" She said this last as though to convince herself.
"They are wonderful little cakes—they are very celebrated!" Giovanni said it with an aggrieved air that made Nina laugh. As though wilfully misunderstanding her, he turned to his sister-in-law.
"Such curious ideas Miss Randolph has about Rome! One would suppose, to hear her, that itwas a land of witchcraft—even our food is to be taken with suspicion."
"Not at all," retorted Nina, with a turn of manner that would have done credit to an Italian, "a land of enchantment, which makes ordinary cakes—very ordinary little cakes, I tell you!—seem small squares and rounds of ambrosia. And, furthermore—I can assure you it is much more comfortable here than in the country."
If Giovanni thought she was going to stay sentimental very long, he did not know the American temperament. For she now went into a long dissertation upon the discomfort of Torre Sansevero, where she nearly froze to death. Candle light she had not minded, though she much preferred electricity.
"Have you entirely obliterated the gardens from your memory, Mademoiselle?" Giovanni asked in an undertone, and with a romantic inflection. But Nina's mood was not, at that moment, attuned to gardens.
"Ah, I love Rome—just Rome itself! There is no other such place in all the world! I thought I loved Paris. Paris is gay and beautiful. But Rome is glorious—splendid!"
Giovanni's chagrin at her apparent indifference to the gardens was changed to enthusiasm at her appreciation of his beloved city, for to have her love Rome was like having her love the greater portion of himself—who was but part of Rome.
"The only detriment is," continued Nina, "that at night I dream of marble statues parading against backgrounds of cobalt blue under groined arches of gold—like the ceilings in the rooms of the Borgias and—this one! Why this is exactly like them! There is the same face as the St. Catherine——" then suddenly she sat up, leaning eagerly forward—"Auntie Princess, I don't want to have a party at all! I don't want to meet people! I like to think of Rome as inhabited with those of long ago." Then with one of her sudden checks upon a tendency to become over sentimental, she added gaily, "The little cakes of to-day, are good at all events! Give me another, please!"
Giovanni slid out of the corner of the sofa like smooth steel springs unfolding; neither hastily, nor with effort. She watched him; fascinated by his grace and litheness. Suddenly, though, she felt uncomfortably certain that he knew what was passing in her mind, and this conviction immediately put her out of humor. For the space of a few minutes she disliked him. He seemed to know that too, for his next sentence was:
"Are all young girls in America so unreasonably capricious, so whimsically balanced mentally as—a young girl I once met?"
"How was she?" Nina's curiosity was aroused in spite of her.
"Very inexperienced, and therefore uncertain. Like the person who in dancing counts one, two, three—one, two, three, for fear of losing time—or like the inexperienced swimmer who measures constantly the distance to shore."
"Children, you are chattering nonsense," the princess interfered. "Here, you lazy ones, help me to write the invitations!"
Nina arose and went to look over her aunt's shoulder. "Oh, but it is for day after to-morrow!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that any one will come at such short notice?" That the invitations were merely visiting cards with "Informal Dance" written in the corner, and a date not forty-eight hours ahead, astonished her. She asked about the details. How could they arrange for the decorations, favors, supper? But the princess smiled complacently. Candles were all the decoration necessary! the favors would be trifles that could be bought in half an hour; and as for supper—what could young people want more than lemonade or tea, sandwiches, and cakes? The only question was where they should dance.
The princess turned to Giovanni. "I think it is best in the picture gallery, don't you?"
"The floor is not so smooth as in the Room of the Aenead, but come, let us go and decide." He led the way, and they followed. The Room of the Aenead was next that in which they were sitting. The portrait gallery, filled with treasures from the days of Italy's grandeur, was still beyond. It was this apartment of all others that most appealed toNina. For a moment she forgot why they had come into the gallery, and her attention remained fixed upon the canvases. With the ever-vigilant Giovanni at her side, she seemed to be walking in a day that was past, to be enveloped in a fairy mantle! She put her hand on a group said to be the work of Michelangelo, running her fingers over the face of one of the figures with awe in her touch.
"To think," she said very softly, the wonder breaking through the low tone of her voice, "to think that Michelangelo's own living hand has been where mine is now—still more, he has been in this very room! Not alone he, but Raphael, Correggio, and Pinturicchio! And all this is called home by my own aunt.Mine!" A little quiver had come into her throat. "It is too wonderful! Yet it gives me the strangest sensation—I can't exactly explain it, but it is as though I were not born at all. Do you know," she had turned to Giovanni wistfully, "I think I can understand just a little of the way you feel—it is as though you were securely planted like a tree. In the beginning, long ago, you were put into the earth with the first things sown. I am merely a leaf, blown from what branch I do not even know—belonging nowhere, coming from nothing. I think I see for the first time what you mean, over here, but justbeingand not caring to do more than survive from the gloriousness of all this." She spread her arms out as though bewildered.
"Now you see," Giovanni answered her, as though there were a new and strong bond of sympathy between them, "why decorations are unnecessary. Can you imagine these walls, which for centuries have looked down upon every great personage of Rome, being decked up like a Christmas tree because a number of people whose achievements are in no way illustrious are coming for an hour or two?"
"I think," said Nina, "that I shall dance like a wraith. It seems almost a sacrilege to bob around and prattle in such surroundings. How silly their sainted ghosts might think us!"
"I never thought of the old masters as saints exactly. But come, Mademoiselle—let us pretend—in each of those chandeliers are burning a hundred wax candles. It is the night of the ball—we open it so—will you dance?"
Again there appeared a Giovanni that she had never seen before, his lazy arrogance vanished, as, whisking a handkerchief out of his pocket to wave in his hand, he became a sprite—a dancing faun, a reincarnation of the spirit of Donatello.
Twice he traversed the length of the gallery, and then, with a vigor added to his grace, he caught Nina and swung her with him into his whirling dance. It had been perfectly done; even in hisabandonthere was no lack of ceremony. There was none of the "come along" spirit of youth in America. He was in this, just as he was in everything else, a remnant of a past age; he had merely been transformed into a Bacchant! He was in no way a mere young man who had grabbed a young girl around the waist and made her dance.
But as the princess watched them, her feelings were strongly at variance. Admiration played the greater part. Even a much less biased mind than hers could not have failed to appreciate the wonderful grace of the man and the girl, for Nina was as graceful as he. Yet the princess looked vaguely troubled, too, at the thought that Giovanni was perhaps overstepping his privilege.
"Giovanni! Nina!" she called, but she might as well have appealed to the wind that blew through the courtyard below, and instead of their heeding she felt her own waist encircled as Sansevero, who had entered by the door behind her, swept her into the dance with him. "But, Sandro!" she exclaimed, resisting, "it is . . . not seemly! What if . . . the servants . . . should . . . see us?" But, joining Giovanni in the tune he was whistling, Sansevero seemed to have caught some of his brother's humor. If Giovanni had become the spirit of grace, Alessandro had become the spirit of recklessness, and Eleanor was whirled, breathless, not as one dances usually, but madly, so that her feet barely touched the floor. To add to the revelry of the scene, the Great Dane, who was never far from Giovanni's side, now joined the general whirl and leaped round and round asthough he had but newly come from a bath, his deep bark punctuating the valse the two men were whistling. The princess felt an apprehensive dread of a servant's intrusion, and again a breathless "Sandro, stop!" escaped her lips just as——
The portière was lifted and the footman announced, "Suo Eccellenza il Duca di Scorpa!"
"Ah, I hope I do not intrude upon the family gaiety!" The duke's face was insinuatingly bland and his manner smooth as an eel.
The dancers stopped instantly. The princess flushed, but otherwise only one who knew her intimately might have guessed that she was conscious of having been put in the position of a careless and undignified chaperon. But she winced inwardly, and felt no reassurance in the knowledge that the duke's tongue was known to be more skillful in the art of embroidering than the fingers of the most expert needlewoman. Sansevero followed his wife's cue, but without feeling her dismay, for he, it must be remembered, liked Scorpa. He had the naïve manner of a child caught doing something foolish, but that was all. Giovanni welcomed the duke suavely, yet, as the princess led Scorpa into the living rooms, Nina had an exhibition of a real side of Giovanni that she was destined to remember ever after.
She never in her life had imagined that such fury could be depicted in the human countenance. His nostrils dilated, and his jaw was squared.
"I'll kill that viper yet!" he muttered between his teeth, and, reaching out for the first thing to hand, his long smooth fingers locked around the neck of the Great Dane—so tight that the dog, half strangled and snarling, lunged at his tormenter. Nina cried out in horror, but instantly Giovanni's temper vanished as it had come. He relaxed his fingers with a caress; and the animal fawned on him.
"Forgive me, Mademoiselle." He said it as lightly as though there had been only some trivial inattention to overlook.
The whole scene had taken place in a moment—so quickly, in fact, that as Nina and he followed the princess through the adjoining rooms, she half wondered if her senses had deceived her. What manner of man was this indolent, graceful descendant of a feudal race? As he approached the duke, Nina unconsciously held her breath. Half expecting to see them draw daggers then and there, she glanced fearfully from one to the other; but Giovanni, smiling his sleepy-eyed smile, talked as though he thought the duke the most charming man in the world.