The Title Market Part 28

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 G.o.d 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 unimpa.s.sioned 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 felt suddenly 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 a.s.sailed 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 toward her 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 d.u.c.h.ess was hovering anxiously at the entrance of the rooms leading to the picture gallery, the closed _portieres_ screening 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 the _portiere_, 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 d.u.c.h.ess much disturbed over it, though I a.s.sured her it was quite usual for young girls to go about alone in America."

His look at the d.u.c.h.ess 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 before I 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 d.u.c.h.ess. 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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. "The sirocco 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 she _has_ to defend her, 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 d.u.c.h.ess with, "Tell us the _truth_ about 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 d.u.c.h.ess reluctantly, as though she were loath to speak 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. I _suppose_ he 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 prey whose 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 att.i.tude 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 const.i.tution, 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 a.s.sailant, 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 with her 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 more such 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.