CHAPTER III
Maria's gnarled knuckles beat vigorously upon her young master's door. When her tattoo failed to bring results, she opened the door and walked boldly in. Waddling to the floor-length windows, she flung aside the heavy draperies, drenching the room with sunlight. With a guttural exclamation that was half disgust and half tenderness, she turned toward the dark, recumbent form upon the canopied bed, still undisturbed by her activities. She approached Rodrigo and shook him.
When at last he blinked up at her, she said sharply, "Get up, lazy one. Your American has already breakfasted and is downstairs waiting for you."
Rodrigo's face screwed itself interrogatively, American? Then his drowsy, somewhat fuddled brain remembered Dorning, of Dorning and Son. Rodrigo frowned. Bother Americans. So full of restless energy, such early risers. He looked languidly at the watch upon his wrist. Eleven o'clock. He sat upright in bed and indulged in a prodigious yawn. With a grimace at the ample back of Maria, just disappearing out of the door, he slid out of bed.
Half an hour later, having bathed and breakfasted, Count Rodrigo, looking as fresh and bright of eye as a trained athlete, walked briskly downstairs to find that his guest had apparently not missed him in the least. Dorning was standing in front of the expansive canvas of an oil painting in the great entrance hall of the Torrianis. He had just donned a pair of tortoise-rimmed glasses and was bending over to read the metal plate set in the elaborate frame of the painting. The plate read: "Francesca Torriani, 1527-1562." Dorning realized the likeness between the ruffled-collared, sardonically smiling aristocrat on the canvas and his host, whom he now turned to greet.
"I see you are making the acquaintance of my ancestors," said Rodrigo. "This one, like the others, you will observe, led a short life and, so I understand, a merry one." Rodrigo noted curiously how glasses added at least five years to the age of John Dorning. Having at the instant of their first encounter at the Café Del Mare set the American down as an innocent and probably a prig, Rodrigo had, during their discourse and drinking of the previous night, changed his mind and conceived a mild liking for the man. Dorning was honest, outspoken, and possessed of considerable culture. He was, Rodrigo vaguely felt, the sort of person whom he should cultivate, the type that develops into a staunch and worth-while friend.
"Your ancestor has at least had the good fortune to have been perpetuated by an excellent artist," said Dorning.
"Here is something that will interest you," offered Rodrigo, walking over to a low, ornately carved cabinet set against an adjacent wall. "This is the best example of Early Renaissance cabinet work anywhere around here." Dorning bent a grave, interested head and ran expert fingers over the carving. His host tugged at the doors of the cabinet. As he wrenched them apart, a shelf inside, unbalanced by his effort, slid out upon the floor, spilling its contents as it came. The two young men looked at each other, and Rodrigo grinned sheepishly. Two bundles of letters and a feminine lace fan lay at Dorning's feet.
Rodrigo dropped to his knees and, replacing the souvenirs, closed the cabinet. He rose, dusted his hands, said suavely, "The cabinet was made by Beniti, in Genoa, around 1627. The contents are slightly more modern."
"So I judged," said John Dorning dryly. Then with more enthusiasm, "I only wish I knew Italian antiques as well as you do, Count Torriani—and antiques are my business."
Both turned as Maria came toward them in considerable agitation. "A man named Minardi and a girl are here to see you," she announced in rapid Italian to Rodrigo. "I do not like his looks. I refused to admit him, but he has pushed his way into the outer hall." She indicated the draperies on the other side of the room.
"STOP! DO YOU WANT TO BE ARRESTED? THIS GENTLEMAN IS AN AMERICAN."
Rodrigo's face clouded. Damn the fellow's persistence. "Tell him to go away. I will not see him. Tell him I shall have him arrested if he continues to bother me," he instructed Maria.
She turned doubtfully. She lacked her usual faith in her sharp tongue in dealing with a calloused fellow like Minardi. She had taken but a step when the draperies parted and Minardi, wearing the same clothes, expression, and carnation as on the previous evening, bulked before them. He had heard Rodrigo's voice talking with Maria, and he was taking no chances. His fat, weak face was trying its best to assume hard, menacing lines. His ill-kept, corpulent body was drawn up as straight as possible with unrighteous indignation. He relaxed for an instant to turn around and drag by the wrist from the other side of the curtain his daughter, Rosa.
Rosa had been brought to the scene with some difficulty. She flashed indignation at her father through swollen eyes. Actually propelled now into the presence of Rodrigo, she glanced half defiantly, half shamefacedly at him, then stood regarding the floor.
Victor Minardi started at once toward Dorning, taking up again with undiminished vigor the torrent of abuse and threat which he had hurled at the American at the Café Del Mare. He was persisting in his belief that Dorning was Count Torriani, the man who was to pay.
Rodrigo stepped between the gesticulating Italian and the uncertain Dorning. "I am Count Torriani. Now, what is it you want?"
Minardi wheeled upon Rodrigo. "So—it was you! Ah. Why did you not say so before, eh?" And he launched into a fresh flood of indignation.
Rodrigo raised a hand to stop him. He perceived that this fellow could not be easily overawed. Minardi wanted money and would probably continue to be a howling nuisance until he got it. Rosa, Rodrigo suspected shrewdly, was in the plot with her father. Certainly she would not otherwise have revealed her love affair with Rodrigo to Minardi and, instead of keeping her rendezvous at the Café Del Mare, allowed the noisy old man to come on a blackmailing expedition in her place. Any tenderness Rodrigo had previously felt for Rose Minardi disappeared. His lips curled as he looked at her dark head, cast down in assumed modesty.
When Minardi had calmed down, Rodrigo snapped, "How much do you want?"
Minardi's anger faded. His eyes lighted up with greed. "Five thousand lira," he replied in a business-like tone.
"You come high," said Rodrigo.
Minardi's hand went to his greasy inside coat pocket, "I have here letters that are worth more than that," he said. "Letters you have written to my Rosa. There are such things as breach of promise suits. The newspapers would like them, eh? The Torrianis are not popular at Naples, eh?"
In spite of himself, Rodrigo winced a little. This fat, futile old reprobate began to assume the proportions of a real danger. Rodrigo essayed frankness. "You know so much about the Torrianis," suggested he, "you perhaps know that I have not five thousand liras at the moment."
Minardi shrugged his stooped shoulders. "Even if that is true, you can get them," he said. And he looked significantly at John Dorning, an interested and somewhat disgusted spectator at the scene.
Rodrigo's slim fingers were drumming nervously upon the Beniti cabinet which he had just been displaying to his guest. In their nervous course over the top of the cabinet the finger points met the smooth surface of an elaborately wrought silver vase standing there. Rodrigo looked down. He hesitated an instant, then caught up the vase in his hand.
"This was made by the great Cellini himself," he remarked to Minardi. "It is worth at least twice the amount you are blackmailing me for. You can easily dispose of it in Naples. I do not, of course, admit any of your silly accusations. However, take this vase—and go at once."
He held the exquisitely formed metal toward Minardi. John Dorning's eyes made a hasty appraisal of it. He half opened his lips to protest against this careless disposal of the little silver masterpiece. But Minardi, hardly looking at it, snarled, "No. I want money."
Dorning said at once to Rodrigo, "Give him money then. I will buy the vase. I'll give you twice what he wants—ten thousand liras—and make a handsome profit if I ever want to dispose of it." He took out his purse.
Rodrigo regarded his guest with puzzled surprise. "I don't want you to do this for me, Dorning. I——"
"Please believe me, it is merely a matter of business," Dorning cut in quietly. "I am in Italy for the purpose of picking up just such bargains." He counted out the money and offered it to Rodrigo. The young Italian hesitated an instant, then took the proffered notes, counted them and started to hand half to Minardi.
"You want something for your money, don't you?" Dorning interjected. "Your letters?"
"Naturally," replied Rodrigo, flushing a little. He was not used to being prompted. As he took the packet of note-paper from Minardi's greasy hands he now made an over-elaborate show of checking them up. "They are all here," he decided, speaking curtly and more to Dorning than to Rosa's papa. To the latter he continued even more curtly, "Now get out. If I see you about here again I will turn you over to the police."
Minardi bowed impudently. He made a move to seize the silent Rosa's hand, but she eluded him. Suddenly she opened shrill soprano abuse of her father. "I hope you're satisfied now!" she cried. "You have humiliated me, your daughter. You've sold my honest love for money, made me appear a low, scheming woman. I hate you." With a swift movement she slipped over to Rodrigo, who stood with arms folded, regarding her with a wry smile.
"Please tell me you do not think I plotted this with him," she pleaded, her dark, warm face quite near to his. "It is not for money I love you. I did not come to the café last night, because I was angry with you for telling me I am bad tempered. I cried all last night over that, Rodrigo. But I am not angry at you now. I am angry only at Papa." Her soft arms attempted to steal around Rodrigo's neck. "Tell me that you still love me," she begged in a low, husky voice.
Still he stood rigid. He shot an apologetic smile at Dorning. Even now he felt the attraction of this creature of primitive emotions, though he suspected she was acting.
"But you are bad tempered, Rosa," he jibed, disengaging her arms. "And I think you are somewhat of a liar besides."
She fairly flung herself away from him at that, standing with heaving bosom and flashing eyes. She was still cursing him when her father laid violent hands upon her and led her out of the house.
Rodrigo shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette. "A charming creature," he remarked flippantly to Dorning. Nevertheless Rodrigo was rather ashamed of the scene the two Minardis had made in front of the American. Somehow Dorning had already assumed an importance to him much more than that of a casual and congenial guest. It was not that Dorning had stepped into an embarrassing situation with ten thousand liras. It was the spirit that had prompted the American's action. Rodrigo sensed a quiet strength in the man that he himself somehow lacked, a strength that in the troublous future confronting him he would like to have near him.
"The trouble with women," Rodrigo remarked, "is that they cannot keep love in its proper place. It soon ceases to be a game with them and becomes a mad scramble to possess a man. Then comes jealousy, bad temper, remorse, and complications such as you have just seen."
"'Love is to man a thing apart; to woman their whole being,'" Dorning quoted. He did not think his host had acquitted himself with especial credit in the "complications." There was a tawdriness about the Minardis and the scene they had created unbecoming to a man who owned original Cellinis and other treasures. Art, to Dorning, was about all there was in life. The Rosas were superficial annoyances that had never yet entered into his own career, though he was quite aware that they existed in the careers of most other men. He had been immediately attracted to his host by their mutual interest in art. The charm of the man, his good looks, his facile tongue, his wit and deftness in conversation had added to the attraction. Why should such a man love such a common creature as Rosa Minardi and consent to be blackmailed by her father? Dorning resolved to forget Rosa and turned the conversation to tapestries.
But Rodrigo's thoughts were not entirely diverted from "complications." "There is an amusing tradition about those tapestries," he said. "You will observe that the ones near the window seat are identical with those at the door leading into the outer hall. Well, my worthy ancestor whose portrait you have praised, Francesca Torriani, once found their similarity his undoing. It seems that he was entertaining a very lovely married lady in this room, a Countess. Her husband, the Count, followed her to the rendezvous. Suddenly in the middle of my ancestor's love-making, the Countess caught sight of her husband outside. 'Quick,' she cried, 'where can I hide?' Francesca thrust her behind the tapestry by the door.
"The Count entered, very angry and his hand upon his sword hilt. 'Where is my wife? I saw her come here,' he bellowed. Francesca swore like a gentleman that the lady was not present. The Count insisted and started searching. His eye caught the outline of a lady's foot showing beneath the tapestry. With a loud cry of rage he tore the tapestry to one side and revealed not his Countess but quite another lady! Another of Francesca's lady friends had sought shelter when the Countess entered, behind the tapestries by the window seat. All might have been well had not the Countess, hearing from her hiding-place a woman's voice, been assailed by jealousy and, casting discretion to the winds, come forth breathing fire and brimstone."
"What happened then?" asked Dorning smiling, amused in spite of himself.
"There was a terrific four-handed clash. Poor Francesca was half mad with anxiety. The Count challenged him to a duel. In the fight, Francesca, who, unlike the rest of the Torrianis, was no swordsman, was killed."
"And quite a proper climax to the adventure it was," John Dorning declared soberly.
"Proper—why!" Rodrigo asked. "Because Francesca had been too stupid to learn swordsmanship?"
"No—because of his interest in a lady who belonged to another."
"The lady should not have taken Francesca's love so seriously as to have become jealous. When will women understand that when they take our admiration seriously they kill it?"
"Not at all," Dorning returned stoutly. "That is exactly the wrong attitude. I do not understand it in you—you who are so intelligent and sensible about other things. There are so many other things for you to interest yourself in than in these petty love affairs."
Rodrigo straightened. He did not relish criticism. In the next instant, realizing that Dorning was honest in his questioning and rather pleased that he had aroused his quiet guest to such a pitch, he relaxed and asked calmly, "What other interests do you recommend for a reckless and extravagant gentleman, like myself, who now finds himself penniless and equipped for nothing in the world but for amusing the ladies and for being amused by them?"
"If you will pardon me—are you really in straightened circumstances?"
"Yes. I am in debt. Economy was not one of my father's virtues, nor did he take the trouble to develop it in me." Rodrigo, fearing to be misunderstood, added, "Not that I am in need of a loan, you understand. You have done quite enough for me, and I am grateful."
"What are you thinking of doing then?"
"I can either marry the first single rich lady or widow who will have me, or I can sell or rent this place and its contents."
"You would do neither of those two foolish things."
"Why not?" Rodrigo was curious. He was secretly rather pleased at the personal turn the conversation had taken, for, with all his worldliness and experience along romantic lines, it seemed that Dorning's common sense might be valuable in considering the rather dismaying future.
"Have you ever considered entering trade?" Dorning asked tentatively.
"My father was in trade. There is nothing unpleasant about it to me. What sort of trade?"
Thus encouraged, John Dorning revealed what was in his mind. "We—Dorning and Son," he explained, "have gone in recently, to a very extensive degree, for Italian antiques. My mission over here is for the purpose of adding to our stock. Also, if possible, to acquire a man to manage that department of our business, someone who is an expert in that line and who at the same time is fitted to deal with our rather exclusive clientele. It occurs to me that you might be that man, if you would care to consider it."
Rodrigo did not reply at once. He took three or four steps in silence, thoughtfully, away from Dorning. Go to America! Enter business! He recalled the deprecatory manner in which his father had always talked about business and the great relief it had been for the elder Torriani to leave the Indian trade and settle down at last to be a gentleman again. And he was very much like his father in so many ways. The business of John Dorning, to be sure, was art, something he, Rodrigo, loved. It was not like the mad commercial scramble of ordinary trade. There was nothing commercial about Dorning. Something within Rodrigo said "Go." Something in Dorning's offer was lifting off his mind the almost physical weight that oppressed him every time he considered the future.
"I will accept your offer and return with you to America," Rodrigo said with quiet suddenness.
John Dorning started. He had not suspected such a quick and decisive answer. "Fine," he said. "Can you arrange your affairs to sail with me next week on the Italia?"
Rodrigo was sure that he could. Now that he was committed to the plunge, he was positively gay about it. The two young men spent the rest of the day talking the arrangements over. In the afternoon they journeyed in to Naples in Rodrigo's car and entered an agreement with the fussy Italian real estate agent to rent the palace of the Torrianis to the family of a young American author who had just made a fortune out of a best-selling novel and wished to write its sequel along the romantic shore of the Bay of Naples.