"Have you ever considered entering trade?" Dorning asked tentatively.
"My father was in trade. There is nothing unpleasant about it to me. What sort of trade?"
Thus encouraged, John Dorning revealed what was in his mind. "We—Dorning and Son," he explained, "have gone in recently, to a very extensive degree, for Italian antiques. My mission over here is for the purpose of adding to our stock. Also, if possible, to acquire a man to manage that department of our business, someone who is an expert in that line and who at the same time is fitted to deal with our rather exclusive clientele. It occurs to me that you might be that man, if you would care to consider it."
Rodrigo did not reply at once. He took three or four steps in silence, thoughtfully, away from Dorning. Go to America! Enter business! He recalled the deprecatory manner in which his father had always talked about business and the great relief it had been for the elder Torriani to leave the Indian trade and settle down at last to be a gentleman again. And he was very much like his father in so many ways. The business of John Dorning, to be sure, was art, something he, Rodrigo, loved. It was not like the mad commercial scramble of ordinary trade. There was nothing commercial about Dorning. Something within Rodrigo said "Go." Something in Dorning's offer was lifting off his mind the almost physical weight that oppressed him every time he considered the future.
"I will accept your offer and return with you to America," Rodrigo said with quiet suddenness.
John Dorning started. He had not suspected such a quick and decisive answer. "Fine," he said. "Can you arrange your affairs to sail with me next week on the Italia?"
Rodrigo was sure that he could. Now that he was committed to the plunge, he was positively gay about it. The two young men spent the rest of the day talking the arrangements over. In the afternoon they journeyed in to Naples in Rodrigo's car and entered an agreement with the fussy Italian real estate agent to rent the palace of the Torrianis to the family of a young American author who had just made a fortune out of a best-selling novel and wished to write its sequel along the romantic shore of the Bay of Naples.
CHAPTER IV
The great floating hotel glided steadily ahead over the smooth, black waters of the Mediterranean. Somewhere within her hull, boiler fires were roaring and a labyrinth of machinery was driving furiously, but only a slight, muffled throb reached the ears of the lone passenger standing at the rail directly under the bridge. Over his head he could hear the regular tread of the watch officer as he paced his monotonous round. In front of him was the dark immensity of the night, broken only when he lowered his eyes to take in the lights from the port-holes and the jagged streaks of phosphorescence streaming back from the bow as it cut the water.