In her horror Nina felt her throat grow dry. She stared at the thick, red, cruel, animal lips of the man with a loathing that almost paralyzed her power to move; while his hands pressed numbingly into the flesh of her arms.
"Let me go! Do you hear"—her voice shook with fright and rage—"let me go! At once! You coward! You beast!"
And like a beast he snarled his answer: "Scream all you please! You could not be heard if you had a throat of brass!" Then mockingly he sneered, "Come, won't you dance with me, as you did with the pretty Giovanni? You had his arms around you lovingly enough! But, by Bacchus! 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 God I came even when I did."