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?"