"The story is to be laid in Rome, the theme society, the time the present."
"How fascinating! Ah, please tell me from whom you have drawn your heroine," Nina continued. "Is she rich or poor? Italian, I suppose, and of course young and beautiful! Is the hero a noble duke or an American on the Prisoner of Zenda or Graustark model?"
"Supposing I should tell you that they were yourself, for the one, and our friend Jack over the way, for the other!"
The coupling of her name with Derby's for the second time in less than half an hour struck Nina, and she became absent-minded; then she said vaguely, "But we are not Italians, either of us."
"Neither are my characters! I will tell you," he said, admitting her to his confidence, "I am going to write of the Expatriates—the people who, to those at home, are always said to be 'abroad.' The story from this side of the water is interesting to me. And the Excelsior is an ideal field for observing them."
"I see!" Then ingenuously, "Are you really going to put Jack in your book?"
Porter smiled, amused. "He hardly corresponds to my aimless nomad wandering hither and yon, with neither ambition nor destination! By the way," he added abruptly, "what do you think of Jack? I am not asking this, mind you, just to make conversation, but because I am interested in him as a national type. I confess I was beginning to think that no woman could care for the men at home as any woman might for the Europeans, until he came along the other day." There was no doubting Porter's enthusiasm as he added, "He gave me back my ideals of my own country! He is real, I tell you. But this trip he is going to take into Sicily——"
"There is no danger in this day, surely!" she interrupted.
"I am not so sure of it, they are pesky devils!" Then, appreciating her uneasiness, he tried to reassure her. "Jack will be all right, he will be well protected. In fact, to show you how little I really fear from the adventure, I am thinking of going with him. My work is getting stale, and a week or two of change of scene would set me up."
"I don't see that your going proves there is no danger. I should never imagine you the type of a coward."