CORONETS FOR SALE
According to Italian etiquette, strangers must leave cards within twenty-four hours upon every person to whom they have been introduced. Therefore the afternoon of the day following the ball was necessarily spent by Nina in three hours of steady driving from house to house. Finally, as she and the princess were alighting at the Palazzo Sansevero, Count Tornik drove into the courtyard, and together they mounted to the apartments used by the family.
Nina settled herself in the corner of a sofa, pulling off her gloves. Tornik dropped into a loose-jointed heap in a big chair opposite. Suddenly he sat up straight, his eyebrows lifted.
"I did not know!" he said. "May I felicitate you, mademoiselle?"
"On what?" she asked, puzzled.
"Since you wear a ring, it is evident that your engagement is to be announced. Will you tell me who is the fortunate man?"
She saw that he was gazing at the emerald she wore on her little finger. "Is there reason to think I am engaged—because of this?"
"Certainly, what else? A young girl's wearing a ring can mean but one thing."
"On my little finger? How ridiculous! My father gave it to me. Sometimes, at home, I wear several rings. Does that mean I am engaged to several men?"
"Then you are still free?"
He hesitated as though under an impulse to say something sentimental, then apparently changed his mind, and relapsed into his habitually detached indifference of manner.
"They have curious customs in your country," he said casually. "A friend of mine was in America last year. He told me many things!"
"Did he? What, for instance?"
"He said that the women sat in chairs that balanced back and forth——"
"Chairs that——" she interrupted. "Oh, you mean rocking-chairs! That's true, you don't have them over here, do you? I did not mean to interrupt. You said we rock——"
"Not you, it's the older women who balance all day on verandas, and let their daughters do whatever they please! In an American family, I am told, the young girl is supreme ruler. Is that true?"
Nina, laughing, shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know—I never thought about it! But over here I suppose a girl does not count at all? Tell me, according to your ideas, what her place should be."
"Oh, I do not say should. I merely state the fact: over here, a young girl plays a very small rôle. But then, for the matter of that, most people belong naturally in the background, and very few, whether they are women or men, have their names on the program."
"And you? What part do you play?"
For a moment his eyes gleamed. "That depends upon whether fate shall cast me to support a diva or to occupy an empty stage."
"And if fate allowed you to choose, I could easily imagine that you would prefer a part with very little action and as few lines as possible."
"You are quite wrong. I do not object to saying all that a part calls for, and, above all, I like action."
"That's true; I had forgotten! You are a soldier! I wonder why you went into the army?"
"It is the only career open to me."
Nina was thinking of Giovanni and his point of view as she asked, "Why are you not content to be merely Count Tornik?"
"You mean that I, like Carpazzi, should live on the illustriousness of my name? If I were very poor, perhaps I should."
"How curious!" Nina exclaimed. "Does not a career mean making money?"
"On the contrary, it means spending it! One must have a great deal of money to go to any height in diplomacy."
"Then you are rich?" Nina already had acquired a brutal frankness of direct interrogation through her Italian sojourn.
"Not exactly." He looked bored again. "But I have a little—though perhaps not enough for my ambition. If only there were a serious war, I'd have a good chance." Then he added simply, "I am a good soldier!"
The princess, who had been summoned to the telephone, now returned and seated herself beside Nina on the sofa. "I have just been talking with the Marchesa Valdeste, and she told me that the Queen said most gracious things of you, dear; called you the 'charming little American.'" The prince entered while the princess was speaking. He kissed his wife's hand and began, at great length, to tell her exactly where and how he had spent the afternoon. After a while, however, as one or two other friends dropped in, Sansevero talked aside with Tornik.
"You were not at Savini's last night, were you?" he asked.
Tornik looked interested. "No," he said, "but I hear they had a very high game."
"Yes. Young Allegro was practically cleaned out."
"Who won?"
"Who, indeed, but Scorpa! He has the luck, that man!"
"Were you there? I thought you never played any more; have you taken it up again?"
Sansevero, glancing apprehensively at his wife, answered quickly, "I never play." Fortunately, just then the dangerous conversation was ended by the arrival of the Contessa Potensi. She smiled graciously upon the prince as he pressed her hand to his lips, and bestowed the left-over remnant of the same smile, upon Tornik. She also kissed the air on either side of the princess with much affection, and shook hands cordially with two other ladies who were present, but she directed toward Nina the barest glance.
She and Nina, by the way, furnished at the moment a typical illustration of the difference in appearance between European and American women.
The contessa was wearing an untrimmed, black tailor-made costume with a very long train, a little fur toque to match a small neck piece, and a little sausage-shaped muff. Her diamond earrings were enormous, but not very good stones. Nina's dress was of raspberry cloth, cut in the latest exaggeration of fashion—her skirt was short and skimp as her hat was huge. Her muff of sables as big and soft as a pillow—she could easily have buried her arms in it to the shoulder. The elaborateness of Nina's clothes filled the contessa with satisfaction, for she thought them barbarously inappropriate, and she knew that Giovanni was a martinet so far as "fitness" went.
Presently, in spite of her more than rude greeting, she coolly sat down beside Nina. "Will you make me a cup of tea? I like it without sugar and with very little cream." She did not smile, and she did not say "please." Her bearing was a fair example of the cold, impersonal insolence of which Italian women of fashion are capable when antagonistic.
After a time she leaned over and scrutinized Nina's watch, as though it were in a show case. "Do many young girls in America wear jewels?"
Nina found herself congealing; instead of answering, she handed the contessa her tea, and expressed a hope that she had not put in too much cream.
Taking no notice of Nina's evasion, the contessa, talking indiscriminately about people, arrived finally at the subject of Giovanni. In her opinion, the Marchese di Valdo ought to marry money! Unfortunately, however, she feared he had loved too many women to be capable now of caring for one alone. From this she went to generalities. A man had but one grand passion in a lifetime, didn't Nina think so?
Nina's thoughts were very hazy, indeed, about grand passions, which were associated dimly in her mind with the seven deadly sins—in the category of things one didn't speak of. So she answered vaguely, feeling like a stupid child being cross-examined by the school commissioner.
"Still, he is very attractive, don't you find? Of course, he says the same things to all of us—but then no one understands how to make love as well as he, so what does it matter whether he means it or not? It takes a woman of great experience," insinuated the contessa, "to parry Giovanni's fencing with the foils of love."
Nina was goaded into answering. "You seem to know a great deal about his love-making," she said at last, with the breathy calm of controlled temper.
Half shutting her eyes, the contessa replied: "It is common hearsay. One has only to follow the list of his conquests to know that he must be a past master in the art of making women care for him. That he is fickle is evident; he is constantly changing his attentions from one woman to another, and leaving with a crisis of the heart her whom he has lately adored. I am sorry for the woman he marries—still, perhaps she would not know the difference! He might even be devoted, from force of habit."
Nina, furious, told herself that she did not believe one word that this spiteful woman was saying, but it made an impression all the same, which was, of course, exactly what the contessa wanted.
"Tornik, too, needs a fortune badly," Maria Potensi went on piercing neatly. "It is hard, over here with us, that men acquire fortunes only by marriage. In America, it must be better, for there they can earn their money, and marry for love."
Nina felt her cheeks burn as she listened, but there was nothing she could say. She knew only too well how hard it would be to believe herself loved.
But not all of the women were like the Contessa Potensi, and by the time Nina had been a month in Rome, she had, with the responsiveness of youth, formed several friendships that were rapidly drifting into intimacies, though she chose as her associates, for the most part, young married women rather than girls. Her particular friend was Zoya Olisco, really six months younger than herself, but of a precocious worldly experience that gave her at least ten years' advantage.
The young girls were to Nina quite incomprehensible. Their curiously negative behavior in public, their self-conscious diffidence, seemed to her stupid; but their education filled her with envy and shame. Nearly all spoke several languages, not in her own fashion of broken French, broken German, and baby-talk Italian, but with perfect facility and correctness of grammar. Nearly all were thoroughly grounded in mathematics, history, literature, and science. And yet their whole attitude toward life seemed out of balance; they were like pedagogues never out of the schoolroom—one moment discoursing learnedly, the next prattling like little children. The end and aim of life to them was marriage. Each talked of her dot and of what it might buy her in the way of a husband, very much as girls in America might plan the spending of their Christmas money.
In spite of the unusual liberty allowed Nina, as an American, it seemed to her that she was very restricted. She had, for instance, suggested that they ask Carpazzi to dine with them alone and go to the opera. But the princess had said, "Impossible. Carpazzi, finding no one but the family, would naturally suppose we wish to arrange a marriage between you."
Marry Carpazzi! It was ridiculous; she never had heard of such customs! "Well, then, why not ask Tornik?" she suggested. "He is not an Italian." The princess demurred. It might be possible to ask Tornik—still it was better not. Unless Nina wanted to marry Tornik? Apparently there was little use in pursuing this subject further, so she laughed and gave it up.
They were in the princess's room, at the time, and Nina, dressed for the street, was pulling on new gloves of fawn-colored suède. Her brown velvet and fox furs, her big hat with a fox band fastened with an osprey, were all that the modeste's art could achieve.
The princess fastened a little yellow mink collar around her throat over her black cloth dress, selected the better of two pairs of cleaned white kid gloves, picked up her hard, round, little yellow muff, and then went over and sat on the sofa beside Nina. "By the way, darling, I have something to say to you. The Marchese Valdeste has approached your uncle in regard to a marriage between his son Carlo and you. Not being an Italian, I suppose you want to give your answer yourself. What do you say?"
"What do I say!" Nina's eyes and mouth opened together. "Why, I have never seen the man!"
The princess smiled. "The offer is made in the same way in which it would be if you were an Italian. Your parents not being here, I ask you in their stead—or as I might ask you if you were a widow. To begin, then,—no, I am perfectly in earnest—I am authorized to offer you a young man of unquestionable birth. He has in his own right three castles. Two will need a great deal of repair, but one is in excellent condition and contains three hundred rooms, more than half of which are furnished. He has an annual income of twenty thousand lire and no—debts! That he is fairly good-looking, medium-sized, has black hair and brown eyes, and is said to have a very amiable disposition, are details."
As the princess concluded, Nina added: "And he has also a most charming mother. My answer is—my regret that I cannot marry her instead."
"You are sure you do not care to consider this offer?"
Nina looked steadily into her aunt's eyes. "I am sure you married Uncle Sandro through no such courtship as this!"
"I did not think you would accept, my dear child; yet such marriages often turn out for the best—at least it was my duty to ask for your answer. You have given it—and now let us go out. The carriage has been waiting some time."
Shortly afterward they were in the Pincio—for the custom still prevails among Roman ladies and gentlemen of slowly driving up and down or standing for a chat with friends. The dome of St. Peter's looked like a globe of gold set in the center of the celebrated frame of the Pincio trees, but as the sun went down it grew chilly, and the Sansevero landau rolled briskly up the Corso. At Nina's suggestion they stopped at a tea shop.
No sooner were they seated at a little table when they were joined by the Duchess Astarte. The duchess had most graceful manners, but she talked to the princess across Nina, and about her, as though she were an article of furniture, or at least a small child who could not understand what was said. She spoke frankly of Nina's suitors. Scorpa's was an excellent title, but Scorpa was a widower and no longer young. Then she begged the princess to consider her nephew, the young Prince Allegro.
It would be a brilliant match, for he was one of the mediatized princes and ranked with royalty. But his properties took such an immense amount of money to keep up that an added fortune would be a great relief to the whole family. Her consummate naturalness did away with much of the bluntness of her speech; but even so, this was too much for Nina's calmness.
"But, Duchessa," she broke in, "have the Prince Allegro and I nothing to do with the arranging of our own future?"
The duchess observed her in as much astonishment as though a baby of six months had broken into the conversation. A moment or two elapsed before she said smoothly: "Oh, the Prince is enchanted at the idea. He danced with you at Court and finds you molto simpatica. It is a great name, my dear, that he has to offer you——" and then with a condescension, yet a courteousness that prevented offense: "We shall all be willing, nay, delighted, to receive you with open arms. Your position will be in every way as though you had been born into the nobility."
"Thank you," said Nina quietly, "but I don't think I am quite used to the European marriage of arrangement."
"Ah, but it need not be a marriage of arrangement. If you will permit Allegro to pay his addresses to you, he will consider himself the most fortunate of men. May I tell him?"
"Please not!" said Nina. Quite at bay, she longed wildly for some means of escape. To her relief, two Americans whom she knew, young Mrs. Davis and her sister, entered the shop. Nina rose abruptly, apologizing to the duchess, and ran to them. How long had they been in Rome? Where were they stopping? What was the news from New York? They told her all they could think of. The Tony Stuarts had a son—they thought it the only baby that had ever been born; and as for old Mr. Stuart, he was nearly insane with joy. Billy Rivers had lost every cent of his money; and then—but, of course, Nina had heard about John Derby.
In her fear that some accident had happened to him, Nina's heart seemed to miss two beats. But Mrs. Davis merely meant his success in mining. By the way, she had seen him in New York, as she was driving to the steamer. He was striding up Fifth Avenue, and was "too good-looking for words."
The princess was leaving the shop and, as Nina followed her into the carriage, her mind was full of Derby. It was very strange—she had had a letter the day before from Arizona, in which John had said nothing about going to New York. Then she remembered that her father had hinted at a possibility that John might be sent to Italy later in the winter. Her pulse quickened at the thought, but with no consciousness of sentiment deepened or changed by absence.
Arrived at the palace, she found a note from Zoya Olisco, who was coming to spend the next day with her. Nina handed the note to the princess. "I thought we could go out in the car and lunch somewhere. Or is it not allowed?" Her eyes twinkled as she questioned.
"That depends," the princess answered in the same spirit, "upon whether you are counting upon including me. I am a very disagreeable tyrant when it comes to being left out of a party."
The automobile in question was Nina's. She had wanted one, and with her "to want" meant "to get." Nearly every one thought it belonged to the princess, as it would not have occurred to many in Rome to suppose it was owned by a young girl.
That night another extravagance of Nina's came to light. In the morning they had been at an exhibition of furs brought to Rome by a Russian dealer. Among them was a set of superb sables, and Nina, throwing the collar around her aunt's shoulders, had exclaimed at their becomingness.
The princess unconsciously stroked the furs as she put them down. "I have never seen anything more lovely," she said wistfully, and with no idea that she had sighed. A sable collar and muff had been one of the desired things of her life, but it was utterly impossible now to think of so much as one skin, and in the piece and muff in question there were more than thirty.
That evening, upon their return, the princess found the furs in her room when she went to dress. At first she felt that they were too much to accept, but when Nina's hazel eyes implored, and her lips begged her aunt to take "just one present to remember her by," the princess for once gave free reign to her emotions and was as wildly delighted as a child.
The very next afternoon, however, Scorpa saw the sables, and on a slip of paper made the following note:
| Sables | 80,000 lire |
| 60 H. P. motor car | 30,000 lire |
With a smile that would have done no discredit to his Satanic Majesty, he put the paper in his pocket.