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All the same, my boy; put this in your pipe and smoke it: 'Ware Scorpa, don't turn your back to any one who might be in his employ, and bolt your door at night. Will you have my Winchester?" Derby smoked on, unperturbed. "It sounds as though it might be interesting. I had expected a mere proposition of machinery; the human element always adds. Wasn't it you who told me that?"
Young Allegro was practically cleaned out." "Who won?" "Who, indeed, but Scorpa! He has the luck, that man!" "Were you there? I thought you never played any more; have you taken it up again?" Sansevero, glancing apprehensively at his wife, answered quickly, "I never play." Fortunately, just then the dangerous conversation was ended by the arrival of the Contessa Potensi.
Then Nina noticed that the princess was holding her hands over her face. She hurried to her anxiously. "Aunt Eleanor, what is it?" The princess put her hands down. "I am just thankful that is all. It threatened to be so dreadful, I can scarcely realize the relief yet. What a chain of circumstances! It is almost impossible to believe that even Scorpa would plan them!
Her manner clearly demanded that the American girl recognize the great favor that she had received. "He is my only son," she reiterated, "and the head of the family of the Scorpa. You must come to tea to-morrow. I especially invite you, though we are regularly at home." The condescension of her demeanor can hardly be described.
In the midst of her distress she could not help but smile at the absurdity. "Scorpa is doing it all," he continued "not I. You know what a clever business man he is! He assured me that it was a rare chance the opportunity of a lifetime. It was because I wanted so to restore to you what my gambling had cost, that I agreed. I did not think it possible to lose.
She turned her attention to the fresco before her; it was one with the portrait of the kneeling Borgia. "He looks like a burglar!" she exclaimed with a shudder. Then she hesitated, but Giovanni's mood being too uncertain to take into consideration she finished her sentence, "Do you know who he looks like ? The Duke Scorpa." Again he was angry.
Scorpa's was an excellent title, but Scorpa was a widower and no longer young. Then she begged the princess to consider her nephew, the young Prince Allegro. It would be a brilliant match, for he was one of the mediatized princes and ranked with royalty. But his properties took such an immense amount of money to keep up that an added fortune would be a great relief to the whole family.
At the end of ten or twelve rooms, each gloomy, yet over-rich with architectural adornments and modern elaboration, two lackeys lifted the hangings covering the last doorway, and announced: "Sua Eccellenza la Principessa Sansevero!" "Messa Randolph." The Duchess Scorpa was very gracious to the American heiress.
Giovanni Sansevero had returned, and to Nina the commencement of the spring season promised a repetition of the winter. Nina's antipathy to the Duke Scorpa remained unchanged, and to her annoyance it had happened frequently, when dining out, that he had taken her in to dinner.
Signore is letting them grow strong that they may the better use their fangs. They cannot believe that Signore is not the devil in paying such wages in pretending to give them a life of ease. The great Duke Scorpa is their friend he has been able to do nothing.
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