"TelegraphCelticat Gibraltar, giving Hobson instructions where to find you. Put package he carries in safe keeping. In case of serious development use own judgment."
"TelegraphCelticat Gibraltar, giving Hobson instructions where to find you. Put package he carries in safe keeping. In case of serious development use own judgment."
Hobson was one of J. B. Randolph's secretaries. Derby at once wired to Hobson to await him in Naples. Then, leaving Tiggs and Jenkins in charge, he and Porter embarked.
As they leaned over the deck rail watching the blue shallows where the waters of the Mediterranean curled away from the ship's prow, Porter said:
"It must be good to be going back to Rome with the feeling that you have carried out what you started to do. It's a big feather in your cap, and now there is only one thing needed to make the whole episode a romance from start to finish!"
Derby interrogated good-humoredly, "And that is——?"
"You will probably go up in the air if I tell you."
Derby looked up from the water. "Go ahead—say what you like——"
"You ought to marry Miss Randolph!" Porter declared abruptly, and before Derby could protest he hurried on: "Yes, I know what you would say—she is too rich and she is scheduled to marry a title. But I don't think she is the sort of girl that really puts as much stock in titles as it would seem; and as for money, by the time you have two or three mines like the 'Little Devil' going, you will be pretty rich yourself. Even with your present prospects, no one could accuse you of marrying her for her fortune."
"Prospects are very different from actual money, and compared to her I'm a pauper," Derby answered. "I don't care what people accuse me of, but to marry a girl like Nina Randolph—even assuming the unlikelihood that she'd have me—would be a fatal mistake, unless I had a fortune to match her own. Every changing hour of the day would bring fresh doubt; she would never believe in a poor man's love. How could she!"
Derby stood up straight, thrust his hands into the pockets of his ulster, and as Porter tried to protest, he withdrew from the discussion by declaring that there was nothing to discuss. For himself—he was but a human machine that God had set upon the earth to bore holes in it, and to set swarms of human ants working.
In Rome, after Easter, society blossomed out afresh. Giovanni Sansevero had returned, and to Nina the commencement of the spring season promised a repetition of the winter.
Nina's antipathy to the Duke Scorpa remained unchanged, and to her annoyance it had happened frequently, when dining out, that he had taken her in to dinner. Each time his unctuous, "It is my pleasure, Signorina, to conduct you," gave her so strong a feeling of resentment that she had to exert a real effort to put her finger tips on his coat sleeve. She always kept the distance between them as wide as possible by the angle at which her arm was bent.
On looking back, however, she had to acknowledge that his manner had undergone a radical change. He no longer alarmed her by aggressive pursuit, nor sought to lead the conversation to those personal topics which she had found so repellent. Furthermore, he never alluded to the threat he had made to her that day at the hunt, nor even mentioned his rejected suit. And yet she felt apprehensively that he had not given up his original determination.
In the meantime he was untiring in his efforts to interest her, and evinced an ability to keep the conversation going with great skill—even more skill than Giovanni, whose natural attractiveness could afford to do without the effort that Scorpa found necessary. He flattered her by his assumption that she was a woman of the world, and he disguised the exaggeration of his expressions in such a way that she thought he was speaking but the barest truth. For instance, he dilated upon the particular qualities for which Nina herself adored the princess, until it became apparent to her that, after all, Scorpa must be a man of sensitive perceptions.
Nevertheless, the underlying feeling of terror with which he filled her at the first moment of each encounter was far worse than mere dislike. Intuitively, she regarded him as a menace, and, through his unvarying politeness, she found herself trying to fathom his real intentions. What object could he have had in ranging himself with the suitors for her hand? He was very rich himself. Aside from his own fortune, "poor Jane"—as every one called his first wife—had left a handsome amount, which, according to European custom, was entirely in his control. Perhaps he wanted still more money, and thought that he could find in her another source of supply to be exhausted and practically thrust aside. Many tales that Nina had heard, many things that she had observed were not good for the girl's all too ready cynicism—and the hard little lines around hermouth that the princess so disliked to see, were growing deeper.
The question of international marriage was one on which Nina found herself becoming quite skeptical. She admitted that there were happy examples. Her aunt, for instance. Surely no wife was ever more loved and appreciated than the princess, even though her husband had one serious failing. But then, did not some American husbands also gamble?
In the Masco household too, the bonny Kate was certainly in no need of sympathy. That her position was not as good as her husband's name should have given her was her own fault. She was not one of those gifted with the chameleon faculty of harmonizing with her background. Among the mellow pigments of the Roman canvas she was a glaring splotch of primary color. But she was far from unhappy.
Indeed, so far as Nina's observation could penetrate, the general impression of the average Americo-Italian marriage was of sympathetic comradeship between husband and wife; in nearly every household she had found the indescribably charming atmosphere of a harmonious home.
Yet proposals for the hand of the American heiress were so common that, in spite of the delightful households of her countrywomen, Nina had long since begun to think—first in fun and then more seriously—of the palaces of Italy as so many spider webs waiting for the American gilded fly. It was atthe Palazzo Scorpa that her theory became actuality.
The princess had, very much against Nina's will, taken her to see the duchess on the day after their own dance. But a serious indisposition had prevented the duchess from receiving—not only on that particular day, but for the rest of the winter. Toward the end of March, however, in response to a note, Nina was finally obliged to enter the Palazzo Scorpa.
It was a rugged gray stone fortress of a place, "like a monster," Nina said, "of the dragon age, that sulkily remained asleep and hidden among the narrow, twisted streets that had crept around it."
Through the yawning gateway they entered a sunless courtyard. Even the porter at the door, notwithstanding his gold lace and crimson livery, was austere and forbidding. Within, the palace had been refurnished in the most lavish Florentine period, but the effect of the high-vaulted rooms was that of a prison.
One room, however, through which they passed to reach the reception apartments of the duchess, gave Nina a little thrill in spite of her antipathy. The Scorpas had belonged to the "Blacks," that is to the ecclesiasticals, and this room was not repaired in modern fashion, but hung in tattered purple silk. On one side stood a solitary piece of furniture—a great gilt throne upholstered in red velvet, and aboveit hung a portrait of Pope Alexander VI, the whole surmounted by a canopy of red velvet.
"Was he a relation of the duke?" Nina whispered, aghast at the resemblance.
"Who, child?" asked the princess.
"Rodrigo Borgia."
"No one knows. Hush!"
"But why the throne? Were the Scorpas kings—or what?"
"Before the secular unification of Italy," the princess answered, "the Holy Fathers used to visit the Scorpa cardinals. There has always been a Scorpa among the cardinals. The one now is Monsignore Gamba del Sati. Del Sati is one of the numerous names of the Scorpa family."
Nina cast another glance at the portrait of Alexander VI. The sinister face was so like the present duke's that it made her shudder, and her imagination at once pictured slaves and prisoners being dragged along these same stone floors. At the end of ten or twelve rooms, each gloomy, yet over-rich with architectural adornments and modern elaboration, two lackeys lifted the hangings covering the last doorway, and announced:
"Sua Eccellenza la Principessa Sansevero!"
"Messa Randolph."
The Duchess Scorpa was very gracious to the American heiress. But, unaccountably, Nina had a strangled feeling, as though she were a bird and had been enticed into a cage. It was a ridiculous notion,for, even following out the simile, the door was open, she knew; and, for that matter, the bars were too far apart to hold her, as soon as she should choose to slip through. But the feeling of the cage was oppressively vivid, and she clung as closely to her aunt's side as she could. Friends of the princess rather monopolized her, however, while the duchess neglected her other guests to talk to Nina. To add to the girl's distress, the duke, stroking his heavy chin with his fat hand, stood beside her chair with what seemed a proprietary air, and a smile that was intolerable. "Well, my guests," his manner seemed to say, "how do you like my choice? She is not all that I might ask for, but she will do—quite nicely."
Nina glanced appealingly at her aunt, but Eleanor's back was turned. Involuntarily she looked toward the doorway—Giovanni was to meet them there, and she longed to see his slender figure appear between theportières, to hear the announcement of the well-known name which was no less great than that of the odious man who was trying to compromise her by his air of proprietorship.
Nina could stand it no longer, and sprang to her feet, in the very midst of a long-winded story about—she had no idea what the duchess was saying to her, but she realized that she had done an inexcusablygauchething, not only interrupting, but in starting to go before her chaperon made the move. And her discomfiture was increased by a quick sense of the Potensi's derisive criticism. Recovering herself, she exclaimed rapidly: "I am so much interested in sculpture; may I look at that statue?"
The duchess, far from showing resentment at the interruption, was apparently delighted with the opportunity of impressing upon her guest the greatness of the palace and the family of the Scorpas. "Certainly," she cooed, as nearly as a snapping turtle can imitate a turtledove; "that is a genuine Niccola Pisano. The original document is still intact in which he agreed with the cardinal of our house to execute it himself. The portrait of our ancestor who ordered the statue is in the gallery."
Before Nina could resist, she found herself being conducted between mother and son through the numerous rooms which terminated finally in the gallery. Unlike most of the collections of Italy, this included many modern canvases.
Before the portrait of a thin, heavy-boned, frightened-looking English girl, the duke assumed a deeply sentimental air, sighing as though out of breath. "That is the portrait of my beloved Jane," he said. "It was painted by Sargent while we were on our honeymoon." The artist, with his consummate skill of characterization, had transferred a crushed, fatalistic helplessness to the canvas. Nina found herself, partly in pity, partly in contempt, scrutinizing the face of the woman who had brought herself to marry such a man.
Suddenly an indescribable feeling of oppression seized her. She looked away from the picture, andthen, glancing around to speak to the duchess, she saw the edge of her dress disappearing through the hangings of the doorway, while between herself and her retreating hostess stood the stolid figure of the duke, with the most odious smile imaginable upon his horrid face.
With a flush of anger that made her temples throb, Nina realized that a dastardly trap had been sprung upon her. To leave a young girl even for a moment unchaperoned was against the strictest rule of Italian propriety. The duchess had brought her all this distance on purpose to leave her with the villainous duke—in a situation that, should it become known, would so compromise an Italian girl that there would be no place for her in the social system of her world afterward outside of a convent. Her marriage with the duke would be almost inevitable.
Determined to give no evidence of the terror that gripped her, with the most fearless air she could assume she attempted to pass the duke; but he blocked her way so that her manœuvres came down to the indignity of a game of blind man's buff. Nina held her head very high and looked straight at her tormentor. "Please allow me to pass." She tried hard to speak quietly and to keep the tremulousness out of her voice.
For answer Scorpa quickly closed the intervening distance between them, and the next thing she knew the grasp of his thick, hot hands burned through the sleeve of her coat, and his face was thrust near toher own. In a frenzy of fury she wrenched herself free, and without thought or even consciousness of what she was doing, she struck him full in the face.
Instead of recoiling, he caught and pinned her arms in a grip like a vice. "Ah, ha, so that is the mettle you are made of, is it, you little fiend! Don't think that I mind your fury—you will be a wife after my own heart when I have tamed you! I am a man of my word—I said I would marry you, and I will! Not many men would want to marry a woman of your temper, but you suit me!"
In her horror Nina felt her throat grow dry. She stared at the thick, red, cruel, animal lips of the man with a loathing that almost paralyzed her power to move; while his hands pressed numbingly into the flesh of her arms.
"Let me go! Do you hear"—her voice shook with fright and rage—"let me go! At once! You coward! You beast!"
And like a beast he snarled his answer: "Scream all you please! You could not be heard if you had a throat of brass!" Then mockingly he sneered, "Come, won't you dance with me, as you did with the pretty Giovanni? You had his arms around you lovingly enough! But, by Bacchus! the way to win a woman is to seize her, after the good old customs of our ancestors!" And with that he drew her close to him—so close that, though she screamed and struggled like a fury, his lips drew nearer—nearer——
Then a jar struck through her blinding rage; in a daze she felt herself released, and realized that Giovanni had appeared; that he had gripped Scorpa around the throat until his eyes started out of their sockets; and then sent him sprawling to the floor.
With the relief and reaction, everything seemed to recede from Nina and grow black. Dimly she felt that Giovanni had put his arm around her to support her. "Come quickly, Mademoiselle, before there is a scene"—she heard his voice as though it were far off. But she was perfectly conscious. She knew that Scorpa still lay on the floor as Giovanni hurried her through another set of rooms and led her down a staircase that brought them to a second entrance door—one by which, as it happened, Giovanni had come in. The footman on duty looked as though he were going to bar their egress, but Giovanni ordered him to open the door quickly. "The lady is fainting," he said, and a glance at Nina's face too well confirmed it. Besides, the man would hardly have dared disobey a Sansevero. Once in the open air, they lost no time in going around to the main entrance. The Sansevero carriage was waiting, and Giovanni put Nina in. "Wait here a moment—I will go up and tell Eleanor."
Nina was shaking from head to foot. "No—no—don't leave me; take me away!"
"It is not seemly to drive with you, Mademoiselle; I will return in a moment."
But by this time Nina was hysterical. "No—no—please take me home," she begged. "The carriage can come back." And she began to sob.
Giovanni hesitated, then jumped in quickly, telling the coachman to drive home as fast as possible.
"It must have been a frightful experience," he said, as they started. "Thank God I came even when I did."
A shudder ran through Nina. Instinctively she drew away from Giovanni, merely because he was a foreigner, and of the same race as Scorpa. She could still see those thick, loathsome lips approaching her own, and the recollection gave her a nauseating sense of pollution. Holding her hands over her face, she sobbed and sobbed.
Giovanni let her cry it out. It was not a moment to play on her feelings—they were too strained to stand any other emotion. Yet had he considered nothing but his own advantage, he could not better have used his opportunity than by doing exactly what he did.
"Listen, Mademoiselle"—his voice was soothing—as kind and unimpassioned as though he were talking to a troubled little child. "Promise me that you will try not to think about this afternoon. It will do no good. Try to forget it, if you can. That man shall never again in any way enter your life. At least I can promise you that! Here we are! Now," he added in English, as the footman opened the door, "go upstairs and lie down. I will go back immediately and tell Eleanor that you feltsuddenly ill and that the carriage took you home. It is not likely that Scorpa has given any version of the affair."
But a new fear assailed Nina. "You cannot go back! The duke will kill you! He would do anything, that man!"
There was pride in Giovanni's easy answer. "He is not very agile," he laughed; "to stab he would have first to reach me!" Then seriously and very gently he added, "You are overstrung and nervous, Mademoiselle. On my honor I promise you need never fear him again."
"What do you mean by that?" Startled, she put the question.
"Nothing," he rejoined lightly, "only that a man never repeats a performance like that of the duke. The Italian custom prevents!" he added, with a curious expression of whimsicality over which Nina puzzled as she mounted the stairs to her room. Even in her shaken state, she marveled at the contrast between Giovanni's finely chiseled features and the elastic strength that must have been necessary to overpower the bull force of the duke. She thought gratefully of the sympathy in his gentle voice, as well as in his whole manner during the ten minutes which were all that had elapsed since the duchess left her. She realized with what perfect tact and perception he had treated her on the way home. And suddenly her heart went out to him. She felt now, as she went through the long stone corridors and galleries towardher room, that instead of drawing away from him, were he at that moment beside her, she might easily sob her emotions all peacefully out in his arms.
In the meantime Giovanni returned to the Palazzo Scorpa and, ascending the main stairway, entered the antechamber of the reception room. The old duchess was hovering anxiously at the entrance of the rooms leading to the picture gallery, the closedportièresscreening her from the guests to whom she had not dared to return without Nina. The rugs laid upon the marble floors dulled all sound of Giovanni's footfalls, so that he appeared without warning, and with his own hand hastily lifted theportière, disclosing her to her waiting guests. She had no choice but to precede him, doubtless framing an excuse for Nina's absence. If so, she need not have troubled, for Giovanni spoke in her stead, and with such distinct enunciation that the whole roomful heard:
"Miss Randolph felt suddenly ill and asked to go home. I came just as the carriage was disappearing, and found the duchess much disturbed over it, though I assured her it was quite usual for young girls to go about alone in America."
His look at the duchess demanded that she corroborate his account.
"It was too bad," she said, glibly enough. "I should have accompanied her as I was, without hat or mantle even, but Miss Randolph was gone beforeI really had time to think. It is, after all, but a step to the Palazzo Sansevero."
Eleanor Sansevero arose. Through a perfect control and sweetness of manner the most careless observer might have read displeasure. "Of course," she said, enunciating each word with smoothly modulated distinctness, "in America there could be no impropriety in a young girl's driving alone, but I am sorry you did not send for me. Your son left the room at the same time—he has not returned."
The American princess towered in slim height above the stolid dumpiness of the duchess. From appearance one would never have guessed rightly which of the two women could trace her lineage for over a thousand years.
The mouth of the duchess went down hard in the corners, and her dull, turtle eyes contracted, then her lips snapped open to answer, but Giovanni again saved her the trouble. "I met Scorpa on the street about ten minutes ago. He was going toward the Circolo d'Acacia."
"Ah yes, Todo was filled with regret, as he wanted to show Miss Randolph the portraits," haltingly echoed the duchess, but she glanced uneasily at the door. "I was glad he did not see her indisposition—he has a heart as tender as a woman's, and it would have distressed him greatly! I do hope, princess, that you will find her quite recovered on your return. I think it must be the effect of sirocco."
The other guests supported her in chorus. "Thesirocco is very treacherous," ventured one. "She was perhaps not acclimatized to Rome," said a second. "I thought she looked pale," chimed a third.
The princess made her adieus at once and, followed by Giovanni, left the palace. For a few minutes the various groups, disposed about the Scorpa drawing-room, conversed in low whispers, but by the time the Sanseveros were well out of earshot the duchess had turned to the whispering groups with a hauteur of expression conveying quite plainly that it was not to be endured that a Sansevero, born American, should imply a criticism of a Duchess Scorpa, born Orsonna.
"A headstrong young barbarian from the United States is quite beyond my control," she shrugged. "How can I help it if she chooses to run from the palace, like Cinderella when the clock strikes twelve!"
One or two of those present who were friends of the Princess Sansevero may have resented the implied slight to her democratic birth. But though there was a vague appreciation of something beneath the surface in this American girl's sudden departure, there was nothing to which any one could take exception.
The Contessa Potensi, however, had long waited for just such an opportunity, and seized it. "I felt sorry for Eleanor Sansevero," she said sweetly. "It puts her in an unendurable position to have to defend such a person. Naturally shehasto defendher, since she is her niece. I am sure she did not want her for the winter—but her parents would not keep her. It is no wonder they would be willing to give her a big dot!"
There was general excitement. "What do you know?" the company cried in chorus. "Tell us about it!"
But the Potensi at once became very discreet. For nothing would she take away a young girl's character. Besides, Eleanor Sansevero was one of her best friends—it would not be loyal to say anything further. More definite information she would not disclose, but her manner left little to the imagination.
"Surely you can tell us something of what is said," insinuated the old Princess Malio, adjusting her false teeth securely in the roof of her mouth as if the better to enjoy the delectable morsel of scandal that she felt was about to be served. But the contessa, with a "could-if-she-would" expression, refused to say anything more, and the old princess turned instead to the duchess with, "Tell us thetruthabout Miss Randolph's sudden illness!"
The truth, of course, was out of the question. Public sympathy must have gone against her and her son, and she hedged to gain time, "It is not all worth the thought needed to frame words."
The old Princess Malio made a swallowing motion, still waiting. "Yes?" she encouraged eagerly.
"Any one could see what happened," said the duchess reluctantly, as though she were loath tospeak scandal. "The American girl, through lack of training—it is, after all, not her fault, poor thing—knows no better than to try to arrange matters for herself! She wanted, of course, to have an opportunity of talking to my Todo alone. Her plan to go into the picture gallery here, however, necessitated my chaperoning her, and then—contrary to her expectations—Todo, who did not fall in with her scheme, said he had an engagement and at once left. She could not, of course, declare the picture gallery of no interest, so I took her, but in her disappointment she quite lost her temper, so much so that it made her ill. And then she took the matter in her own hands and went home—I was never so astonished in my life! She ran off with Giovanni Sansevero so fast I could not catch up with them. Isupposehe put her in the carriage, but for all I know he took her somewhere else. I followed to the front door and waited, not knowing what to do. Just as I returned to inform Princess Sansevero, for whom I have always had the highest regard, Giovanni commenced with his own account. What could I do except agree to his statement?"
She looked inquiringly from one to the other. "That is the whole story! But I have made up my mind to one thing"—she spread her fat fingers out—"not even her millions would induce me to countenance Todo's marriage with such a self-willed girl as that!"
The old Princess Malio looked like a bird of preywhose prize morsel had been stolen from it. "There is more in this than appears," she whispered to a timid little countess sitting next to her.
The latter's half-hearted, "Do you think so, really?" voiced the attitude of nearly all present. The Scorpas were, to use the old Roman proverb, "sleeping dogs best let alone," and the Sanseveros, though not as rich, were none the less too great a family to side against.
While the voice of the duchess was still echoing in the drawing-room of the Palazzo Scorpa, Nina had thrown herself into the corner of the sofa in her own room. She had a perfectly normal constitution, but she had been not only infuriated and horrified, but really frightened, and her nerves were unstrung.
As she grew calmer, she thought more clearly; and she found that the afternoon's experience, horrible as it was, held some leaven—Giovanni's behavior stirred her deeply. She had realized the power of his muscles under his slight build before—when he had held the Great Dane's throat in his grip—and she had seen his flexibility, in turning instantaneously from fury to suavity. Yet his masterful attack upon her assailant, followed by his sympathy and comprehension on the way home, thrilled her as with a revelation of unguessed capacities. John Derby could not have come to her rescue better, nor could she have felt more protected and calmed withher childhood's friend at her side in the carriage, than with this alien of a foreign race.
She went into her dressing-room and bathed her eyes and cheeks in cold water. Then, thinking the princess must surely have returned by this time, she decided to go into the drawing-room. On her way she met her aunt coming toward her, followed closely by Giovanni, who put his finger on his lips, just as the princess exclaimed, "Nina, my child, what happened to you? You did very wrong to run off home alone. I can't understand your having done such a thing. It was not only ill-mannered, but it put you in a very questionable light."
Over the princess's shoulder Giovanni was making an unmistakable demand for silence. "I'm very sorry," Nina faltered—Giovanni was looking at her intensely, pleadingly, his finger on his lips—"but I—never felt like that before. I got terribly—nervous, and I felt that if I did not get away from that house I should go mad." Even the recollection made Nina look so distraught that her aunt's indignation turned to anxiety, and she put her arm around the girl and led her into the drawing-room.
"It is not like you, dear, to lose control of yourself," she said tenderly, and then, as she scrutinized Nina's face in the better light, she added: "You do look white, darling. You had better lie down here on the sofa. I think I will prepare you some tea of camomile," and then, with a final touch of gentle admonition, she added, "We must not have any moresuch scenes!" Nina hoped for a chance to ask Giovanni why she might not tell the princess what had happened, but the latter did not leave the room. Having sent for the camomile flowers, she made Nina a cup of tea, and the subject of the afternoon's occurrence was dropped.
All that evening Nina was tense and nervous, not only because of her experience at the Palazzo Scorpa, but because of something portentous in Giovanni's unexplained demand for silence. He was not at the same dinner party with her, but she went on to a dance at the Marchese Valdeste's, feeling sure that she would have a chance to speak with him there. He always danced with her several times during a ball, and, as he was not very much taller than she, she could easily talk to him without danger of any one's overhearing.
Her partners undoubtedly found herdistraite; her attention vacillated from one side of the ballroom to the other, as she searched for a well-known, graceful figure and a small, sleek black head. All the time, too, she was fearful of seeing a square-jawed face that kept recurring to her memory as she had last seen it that afternoon—distorted, with mouth open, and eyes protruding from their sockets. Vivid pictures of the terrible incident flashed before her as she tried to listen to her partners; now she was swept with horror and revulsion, and again she felt a strange thrill at thought of the steely strength ofGiovanni's arms, as he had half carried her down the stairway. But she looked in vain for her protector—neither he nor the duke appeared.
"What is it, Signorina?" Prince Allegro's voice broke jarringly upon her recollections. "I am afraid I dance too fast!"
Nina recovered herself with a start. "Oh, no! But I feel—a little tired; I wish we might sit down."
"Let me conduct you into the next room—or shall I take you to the princess? Perhaps it would be better for you to go home."
Nina smiled. "No," she said, "I am all right. The room is very warm, I think."
The Contessa Potensi, walking for once with her husband, passed through the adjoining room just as Nina had finally succeeded in focusing her attention upon Allegro's sprightly chatter. As they passed, the contessa stopped a moment to say to Nina, "I am so glad to see that you have recovered from your sudden indisposition of this afternoon." But her tone was neither solicitous nor sincere, and she hid her hands in such a way that she might have been making with her fingers the little horns that are supposed to be a protection against the evil eye.
"I am much better, thank you," Nina answered simply.
"Don't let me keep you standing. I merely wanted to be assured that you are recovered. I would not interrupt atête-à-tête!"
The contessa's manner suggested to Nina that itwas perhaps questionable taste for a young girl to sit out part of a dance. Instead, therefore, of resuming her place on the sofa, she asked Allegro to take her to the princess.
During the rest of the evening she had an uncomfortable conviction that the Contessa Potensi was talking about her. She always had this impression in some degree whenever the contessa was present, but to-night it was strong and unmistakable. And after a while she became aware that other people's eyes were upon her with a new expression, that was not idle conjecture nor unmeaning curiosity. The old ladies against the wall whispered together and glanced openly in her direction, as their gray heads bobbed above their fans.
At the end of the evening, as she was descending the staircase with her aunt and uncle, she was joined by Zoya Olisco, who whispered excitedly, "Tell me,cara mia—what happened this afternoon?"
Nina started. "What have you heard?" She tried to look unconcerned, but her face was troubled, and she drew Zoya out of her aunt's hearing.
"It is rumored that you lost your temper—oh, but entirely! and walked yourself out of the Palazzo Scorpa without so much as saying good-by or waiting for your chaperon."
Nina hesitated, then said in an undertone, "Yes, I am afraid it is true. Was it a dreadful thing to do?"
The contessa laughed softly. "I told you thatyou were a girl after my own heart. In your place I should have walked myself out of that house as quickly as I had entered, but all the same—that would not be my advice. However, this is not the serious part of the story." Even Zoya's buoyancy became restrained as she concluded: "All Rome is asking what you have done with the duke. He followed you out of the room and has not been seen since. Giovanni is said to have spoken of seeing him at the club—and that is known to be untrue. Carlo was at the Circolo d'Acacia all the afternoon; so was that Ugo Potensi, as well as a dozen others—and neither Scorpa nor Giovanni was there! So where is the duke? Come, tell me!"
A look of terror came into Nina's eyes, and the young contessa darted her a swift returning glance of comprehension. "Listen,carissima," she said, "I am your friend, therefore don't look so frightened—you are a regular baby! The situation is not difficult to read. Obviously there was a scene between you, the thick duke, and the agile Giovanni. Just what it was all about, of course, I can only surmise; but Idoknow that Giovanni is deep in it, and, what is more important, I know also that the result is likely to be troublesome for you. For men to quarrel between themselves is one thing; but when awomancomes into it, one can never see the end."
"Woman? I know nothing of any woman." Nina shook her head.
"I told you that you were a baby! But we can'ttalk here. I shall come to see you to-morrow, but not until late in the afternoon. I shall then perhaps be useful, for in the meantime I am going about like the wolf in the sheep's pelt, to see what news I can pick up. Till then—have courage!"
Just then the Sansevero carriage was announced, and Nina was obliged to hasten after her aunt. At the door she glanced back at Zoya with a half-questioning look, which the contessa answered by blowing her a kiss.
That night the little sleep Nina was able to get was fitful and broken by dreams. The duke and his mother appeared to her as cuttlefish in a cave under perpendicular cliffs that ran into the sea. Nina was out in a little boat alone, and the waves dashed the tiny craft nearer and nearer to the cave where the cuttlefish were waiting; finally she came so close that one tentacle seized her. Terrified, she awoke. After hours of half-waking, half-sleeping, formless confusion, she dreamed again. In this dream she and Giovanni were on horseback. She was sitting in a most precarious position on the horse's shoulder, but was held securely by Giovanni's arm around her waist. Behind them she heard the pounding of many horses in pursuit. The whole dream had the underlying terror of a nightmare, and just as the distance diminished, and they were nearly caught, the ground gave way and they pitched over a precipice. As they were falling and about to be dashed on the rocks at the bottom of the ravine, she heard awoman's laugh, and recognized it as that of the Contessa Maria Potensi.
She awoke, trembling, and lit her lamp. It was nearly four o'clock, and she had slept but half an hour. Near her bed was an American magazine; she read the advertisements, to fill her mind with thoughts commonplace and practical enough to banish dreams. The sun was rising when at last she fell asleep, and she did not awake until nearly noon.
The morning's mail brought her a letter from John Derby—a good letter, simple and frank, like himself, full of enthusiasm and of plans for making the "Little Devil" a model settlement. He would arrive in Rome, he told her, within a week. But even John's letter gave her only a few moments' relief from her distressing memories.
Knowing that she had to pay visits with her aunt again that afternoon, she put on her hat before lunch, in the hope of securing an opportunity to speak with Giovanni while waiting for Eleanor, who always dressed after luncheon. When she was nearly ready to go down, Celeste answered a knock at the door, but, instead of delivering a package or message, disappeared. After at least five minutes she returned, and, with a noticeable air of mystery, locked the door, and then gave Nina a letter. "I was told to give this into Mademoiselle's hands, without letting any one know," she said.
Nina felt an undefined misgiving as she tore open the envelope. Though she had never seen Giovanni'shandwriting, she had no doubt that it was his. It looked as though it might not be very legible at best; but on the sheet before her the shaking, uneven letters trailed off into such filiform indistinctness that she had to go through it several times before she could decipher the following, written in French:
"Mademoiselle, I understand you well enough to be sure that you will ask for the truth at all costs, but in giving it to you, I also depend upon your honor to divulge to no one, not even Eleanor, what I tell you: I fought Scorpa this morning and have sustained a bullet wound in the arm. Unfortunately, it was impossible to hide, as the bone is broken and it had to be put in plaster. Scorpa's condition is, I am told, serious. If it goes badly, I shall have to leave the country, though I doubt if he allows the real cause to be known. I rely upon your discretion as completely as you may rely upon my having avenged an insult offered to the purest and noblest of women."I beg you to believe, Mademoiselle, in the respectful devotion of the humblest of your servants.
"Mademoiselle, I understand you well enough to be sure that you will ask for the truth at all costs, but in giving it to you, I also depend upon your honor to divulge to no one, not even Eleanor, what I tell you: I fought Scorpa this morning and have sustained a bullet wound in the arm. Unfortunately, it was impossible to hide, as the bone is broken and it had to be put in plaster. Scorpa's condition is, I am told, serious. If it goes badly, I shall have to leave the country, though I doubt if he allows the real cause to be known. I rely upon your discretion as completely as you may rely upon my having avenged an insult offered to the purest and noblest of women.
"I beg you to believe, Mademoiselle, in the respectful devotion of the humblest of your servants.
"Di Valdo."
Nina folded the letter and locked it away in her jewel case, moving as if in a daze. She felt faint and suffocated. Giovanni had risked his life—for her sake! He was hurt—what if the wound should prove serious, what if he should lose his arm! Oh, if only she might go to her aunt and pour out the whole story! But she was in honor bound to say nothing without Giovanni's permission, and she must master herself at once in order to appear as usual at luncheon.
A little later, as she entered the dining-room, sheheard the prince saying—"Pretty serious accident." He turned at once to her:
"You have heard?" he said, and as she merely inclined her head, he hastened to explain: "Giovanni, it seems, slipped this morning and broke his arm. But, though the fracture is a very serious one, he is in no danger."
Nina tried to speak, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. Naturally enough, both Eleanor and Sansevero interpreted her pallor and agitation as a sign of interest in Giovanni. "He broke the elbow," the prince continued; "a 'T' break, it is called, which may leave the joint stiff. There was a piece of bone splintered." Nina gripped the under edge of the table—she knew what had splintered the bone! She almost screamed aloud, but she set her lips, held tight to the table, and tried to appear calm; while Sansevero, in spite of his anxiety for his brother's condition, could not help feeling great satisfaction in what looked so encouraging to Giovanni's suit.
"Giovanni went to the surgeon's," he continued. "Imagine—he walked there! He should never have attempted such a thing. He had quite an operation, for the splintered portions of the bone had to be cut away. The arm is now in plaster, and they won't be able to tell for weeks whether he ever can move his elbow again. They brought him home a couple of hours ago. He is now a little feverish, but a sister has come to nurse him, and we have left himto rest." Then Sansevero turned to his wife: "It all sounds very queer to me, Leonora. What was the matter with the boy, anyway? Why did he not send for me? And why did he not go to bed like a sensible human being and stay there?"
Nina was on tenterhooks. She so wanted to ask her aunt and uncle what they really thought! She wondered if they truly had no suspicions. Or were they perhaps dissimulating as she herself was trying with poor success to do? She could not understand how the princess, who was usually quick of perception, could possibly be blind to the real facts of the case. She felt choked—as if she herself had fired the shot that might bring far more horrible consequences than her aunt and uncle knew.
The princess, seeing Nina's face grow whiter and whiter, asked anxiously if she felt ill.
"No—not a bit!" Nina answered, looking as though she were about to faint. After several unsuccessful attempts to turn the conversation into happier channels, the princess met with some success in the topic of John Derby and the miracles with which rumor credited him. Nina listened with half-pathetic interest, but her hands trembled, and the few mouthfuls she took almost refused to go down her throat. In her heart, at that moment, everything gave way to Giovanni. She reproached herself deeply for lack of belief in him. Always she had acknowledged that he was charming, but the doubt of his sincerity had weighed against herreally caring for him. She had accepted John Derby's casual words, "The Europeans do a lot of beautiful talking and picturesque posing, but when it comes to real devotion you will find that one of your Uncle Samuel's nephews will come out ahead."
All that was ended; there was no more question about what the Europeans would do when it came to a test. Giovanni had done far more than say beautiful, graceful things—he had proved to her that her honor was dearer to him than his life, and she was stirred to the very depths of her soul. In the midst of Eleanor's talk of John Derby, she tried to imagine what John would have done in Giovanni's place. He would have thrashed the man within an inch of his life—that she knew. But, manly as that would have been, it could not compare with Giovanni's course in silently waiting fourteen or fifteen hours and then deliberately going out in the dull gray dawn and standing up at forty paces as a target for Scorpa's bullet. She thought how, while she had been merely tossing in her bed, unable to sleep, intent on herself, dwelling on her injured dignity and the horror of that brute's touch, Giovanni had been sitting up through the same long night, putting his affairs in order, and looking death in the face! And she found herself forced to realize that Giovanni—whose instability had been the strongest argument against allowing herself to love him—had paid a price so high that his right to her faith must henceforward be unquestioned.
She had only a vague idea when luncheon ended, or what visits she and her uncle and aunt paid that afternoon. She went through the rest of the day as though dazed. Fortunately, her agitation seemed natural to the prince and princess, and her apparent interest in Giovanni was so near to the truth that she did not mind. Late that afternoon she and Zoya Olisco sat together behind the tea table, for most of the time alone. Zoya had the story pretty straight, but Nina simply looked at her dumbly—answering nothing. She was relieved, however, to hear that, so far, people had evidently not ferreted out the facts.
They were not to find out through the papers. On the morning after the duel, theTribunalehad this paragraph: