“Then there are the dances. I do not need to describe them. At Saint Moritz they go to the limit. Fifteen years ago when Chuck Connors and his friends practised these dances in a Bowery dive respectable citizens turned away with disgust. Since then the idle rich who explore the underworld have begun to imitate its dances, which were intended to suggest the morals of the dog-kennel and the farmyard and which have achieved some success in that direction. Unfortunately, the idle rich are well advertised. If they were to wear rings in their noses the practice would soon become fashionable.
“Well, you see, it was no place for my girl. I sent her away with Mrs. Mushtop to Rome, but not until a young Italian count had got himself in love with my money.”
“Count Carola?” I asked.
“Count Carola!” said he. “How did you know?”
“Saw it in the paper.”
“The paper!” he exclaimed. “God save us from the papers as well as from war, pestilence, and sudden death.”
“Is the count really shot in the heart?” I ventured to ask.
“Oh, he likes her as any man likes a pretty, bright-eyed girl,” Norris went on, “but it was a part of my money that he wanted most. I had kept her out of that crowd, and the young man hadn't met her. He had only stood about and stared at us, and had finally asked for an introduction to me, which I refused, greatly to my wife's annoyance. The young man followed them to Rome, but I didn't know that he had done so until I got there. They went around seeing things, and everywhere they went the count was sure to go. Followed them like a dog, day in and day out. Isn't that making it a business? His eyes were on them in every room of every art-gallery. One day, when they stood with some friends near the music-stand in the Pincio Gardens, the count approached Mrs. Mushtop. You know Mrs. Mushtop; she is a good woman, but a European at heart and a worshiper of titles. I didn't suppose that she was such a romantic old saphead of a woman. This is what happened: the count took off his hat and greeted her with great politeness. She was a little flattered. My daughter turned away.
“'I suspect, myself, that you are the young lady's chaperon,' said he.
“'Yes, sir.'