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And the Contessa Potensi occupied her thoughts far more than the various men who had come into the box, and who seemed little more than so many varieties of faces and shirt-fronts. She noticed that many of the older men wore Father Abraham beards and clothes several sizes too big.
I'd rather have my doll and my big apple than sit, like an old cynic, in the corner, watching the children play!" She was immensely pleased with this speech, mentally she quite preened herself. Giovanni looked amused, but the Contessa Potensi caught his glance from across the house, and his smile faded as he bowed.
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.
Maria Potensi has found your picture of dancing grace a bit too charming. Di Valdo is biting his mustache, and she is giving herself away! I always thought the wind sat in that quarter. Now she is losing her temper and with it her discretion!" "Maria Potensi is above suspicion," interrupted the marchesa. "I do not believe there is a word of truth in what you imply."
She half wondered if there had been a love affair between him and the Contessa. Maybe he had wanted to marry her and she had accepted Potensi instead. She wondered if Giovanni still cared; and for a while her sympathy was quite aroused. The curtain went up and every one stopped talking. At the beginning of the entr'acte Giovanni left the box, and Count Tornik took his chair.
Tornik's detached and impersonal manner gave no effect of insult, and Giovanni, beyond looking annoyed, made no further remark. But the Princess Sansevero interposed: "Maria Potensi has a passion for jewels, as a child might have for toys, and she accepts them in the same way. She tells every one about it quite frankly; in that lies the proof of her innocence."
But the Contessa Zoya showed neither sympathy nor credulity, and there was no misinterpreting her meaning as she said: "It is true, Princess, you know the Potensi well, and I only slightly but if my husband offered a diamond ornament " "He would never give her another! Is that it?" put in Tornik. "No nor any one!"
The contessa's manner suggested to Nina that it was perhaps questionable taste for a young girl to sit out part of a dance. Instead, therefore, of resuming her place on the sofa, she asked Allegro to take her to the princess. During the rest of the evening she had an uncomfortable conviction that the Contessa Potensi was talking about her.
When she came to Giovanni's she flew in like a bird. I waited a moment longer, and saw the guards lock the door and the train pull out!" Though Nina understood only vaguely what it all meant, she was human and feminine enough to find a certain grim satisfaction in the thought that Giovanni was no more to be trusted by the Potensi than by herself. A short time afterward Zoya got up to go.
Nina was enchanted with her, and instinctively compared her appearance with that of the sister-in-law, glittering with diamonds. "The Contessa Potensi was a rich girl in her own right, I suppose," Nina remarked aloud. With a suspicion of awkwardness Tornik glanced at Giovanni, who had returned to the box. The latter began to screw up his mustache as he replied in Tornik's stead.
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