The Title Market Part 7

"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 bal.u.s.trade 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 pa.s.sage 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 more or 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.

CHAPTER VII

ROME

Christmas and New Year's pa.s.sed, 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 Giovanni _did_ nothing, he at least _knew_ a 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 her several 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 a long 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 fres...o...b..fore 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 looks like 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 brightly alert, while Giovanni opposite, prattled ceaselessly, except for the interruption necessitated by his constantly taking off his hat as his sister-in-law bowed to pa.s.sing 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 facade, led into a vestibule of unpromising darkness. The _portiere_, 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 c.o.c.kade at the side. He moved majestically down the steps, carrying a silver-headed mace, like a drum-major's, and saluted as the "n.o.bilities" 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 pa.s.sed 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 furnishings there 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 m.u.f.fins 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 it was 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sing in her mind, and this conviction immediately put her out of humor. For the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes she disliked him. He seemed to know that too, for his next sentence was: