"What is he?" whispered Nina to Tornik, who was sitting next her. "Is he a duke?"
"A Don, that is all, I believe."
Softly as the question was put and answered, Carpazzi heard. Showing none of the fury of a moment before he spoke suavely, though still with arrogance.
"Signorina is a stranger in Rome; the Count Tornik also is a foreigner, which excuses an ignorance that would be unpardonable in an Italian."
Tornik at that moment pulled his mustache, looking at it down the length of his nose. It was impossible to tell whether the movement hid annoyance or amusement. Nina was keen with curiosity.
"Of course," Nina said sweetly, eager to soothe his over-sensitive pride, "I have heard of the Carpazzi, but I do not know what is the title of your house. I asked Count Tornik whether you were a duke."
"I am Cesare di Carpazzi!" He said it as though he had announced that he was the Emperor of China.
"The Carpazzi are of the oldest nobility," Giovanni interposed. "Such a name is in itself higher than a title."
Don Cesare bowed to Don Giovanni as though to say, "You see! thus it is!"
The subject would have simmered down, had not Tornik at this point set it boiling, by saying in an undertone to Nina, "Why all this fuss? It is stupid, don't you think?"