During the second of the sixteen years which Angelo Torriani spent intermittently in Calcutta as resident manager of Newbold and Company, Rodrigo was born to Edythe. In the fifteenth year, Rodrigo was sent to England to school. In the same year, Sir Henry Newbold died, an elder son of the self-made knight succeeding to the management of the business. For a year Angelo Torriani carried on in an environment and trade which he had always hated. When, at the end of that period, Edythe, never in robust health and of the type which cannot become accustomed to the tropics, succumbed to a fever, Angelo resigned his position and left India forever.
Returning, after those many years, to the palace of his fathers at Naples, Angelo was for many weeks too much overcome with a very sincere grief hardly to show himself outside the iron gates. But then the reaction smote him. He became, after a few months, nearly the adventuresome Angelo of old. He visited Florence, Rome, the Riviera. He re-entered politics, tentatively at first, then more boldly. He began to notice again that women were smiling at him and then lowering lashes. He spent freely both money and energy. Still a handsome, virile figure at forty-five, he discovered that life, after all, was still good. He struck a rapid pace after a while and maintained it until about six months before Rodrigo Torriani met John Dorning at the Café Del Mare. Angelo Torriani then died quite as suddenly as he had fallen in love with Edythe Newbold. The sixteen years in India, busy but abstemious years, had probably prolonged his life. But the blood of the Torrianis, which killed young, had done for him at last.
Rodrigo was a lively, handsome child with large, snapping black eyes, eyes such as friends of mothers jokingly say augur ill for the girls they encounter when the child grows up. In this case, the prophecy worked out. The boy grew up, energetic, quick-tempered, and very attractive.
At Eton, and, later, at Oxford, whence he had been sent from India at the insistence of his mother, Rodrigo was not Edythe Newbold's son, but Angelo Torriani's. He was naturally more popular with his fellows than with his instructors. The latter did not like it because he apparently never studied. This was particularly irritating to the plodding dons in view of the fact that Rodrigo always passed his examinations with ease. He specialized in subjects which he liked, and he did not like subjects for which he did not possess a natural aptitude that made studying almost superfluous. Moreover, he was quick-witted and he had had excellent English tutor in India.
Rodrigo spent most of his vacation periods in the London town house of his mother's brother, Sir William Newbold, and the merchant-knight's rather stuffy family. The family consisted of Rodrigo's prim aunt, who did not at all possess her late sister's good looks or tolerance, and two weedy blond daughters. Though the latter were both about his own age and his own experience among the fair sex was at the time limited by his scholastic activities, he yet treated Evelyn and Sylvia Newbold with a blasé condescension which they did not fancy in the least. Neither did his Aunt Helen, who had esteemed Angelo Torriani as quite unworthy of marrying into the Newbolds and was continually urging Sir William to keep a tight leash upon Angelo's son. Rodrigo, thus, during his leisure time from Oxford found constant barriers in the way of his wandering very far in London on pleasure bent.
It was the irony of fate that a social affair given under the circumspect auspices of his uncle should have led to his acquaintance with Sophie Binner.
Most of the Newbolds' acquaintances were people like themselves—rich, self-satisfied, very respectable, and quite boring. The entertainments given by this set for their very carefully selected guests were for the most part the soul of convention. Bridge for the usual useless prizes, musicales by visiting celebrities, box parties at the opera. On the evening that Sir William came home from the office and suggested that the Newbolds give a Treasure Hunt, his wife was at first mystified and then scandalized.
The Treasure Hunt was the fad of a rather fast set of London society. It was in the nature of a hare and hounds chase, without the hares. The participants started out from a central spot toward a distant goal, aided at frequent intervals by clews posted upon trees, fences and other places. The first to arrive at the goal was the winner. The hunts were usually accompanied by considerable wining, dining and hilarity of a rather rowdy type.
In answer to his wife's disapproval, Sir William announced that a mutual and very respectable friend of theirs had been describing to him a Treasure Hunt in which the friend had participated and which had quite converted him to the sport.
"We have to give a party next month," Sir William urged in his fussy voice. "I think our set needs a little stirring up. Why shouldn't we have a Treasure Hunt! Many conservative people are going in for them. George Trevor said he was quite charmed. And it is important in a business way that I do something in his honor while he is in London. What do you say?"