Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
She had no thought for the stigma of her words, and Sansevero was not so small that he resented them. "No. I can answer that easily enough. Giovanni has not one drop of the gambling blood. That I can swear to you by the name of my mother!" He made the sign of the cross. Nina sighed with relief.
A little look like triumph flickered in his face; he laughed joyously. "Mademoiselle, you are adorable!" he said. Christmas and New Year's passed, and the Sansevero household moved to Rome.
First he said he had loaned it because Torre Sansevero was cold; then that he had sold it for one hundred thousand lire; then that no money was received; then that he had let the duke have it as security, and that there was an agreement whereby he was to get his picture back. When he was asked to show a receipt in writing, he went into a rage.
Seeing Derby, who had arrived just ahead of them, Zoya walked up to him without hesitation or manoeuvre. "I should like to talk to you," she said; "will you take me to a seat? There is one over there." He gave her his arm and led her to a sofa at the far end of the room. "Have you been out to Torre Sansevero?" she asked when they had sat down. "No.
"Pardon, Excellency," he said, and went back to explain to the waiting group that the great painting of the Sansevero collection at that moment was being carefully examined, by experts, as to its preservation.
He noticed that Nina looked nervous and ill, but she tried to convince him that it was the result of late hours and dancing. Besides, he had no opportunity of talking to her alone, for in consequence of his success, all who were interested in Sicily or mines flocked to the Palazzo Sansevero as soon as it became known that Derby was there.
She looked at him with the softened glance that one sees in a mother's face. Sansevero seated himself at the desk and took up the photograph of Nina. "When will she arrive?" he asked buoyantly; then with sudden inspiration, "Write to Giovanni and ask him to hurry home. If Nina should fancy him, what a prize!" The princess frowned. "On account of her money, you mean?"
"The ballet is very important to-night," Nina heard the marchese saying to the Princess Sansevero. "La Favorita is to appear in the Birth of Venus. She does another dance first a Spanish one, I think." As he spoke, the ballet music had already begun, and the Spanish coryphées were twisting and bowing, and straightening their spines as they danced to the beat of their castanettes.
Sansevero himself looked dejected. "Don't you think, dear one," he protested, "that you were rather severe! What difference can it make after all, whether the poor girl wears a few leaves in her hair or a bit of tulle?" But the princess was inflexible. "It would not be just to the others," she answered, "since we made this rule there has been a great difference in the village.
Nina!" she called, but she might as well have appealed to the wind that blew through the courtyard below, and instead of their heeding she felt her own waist encircled as Sansevero, who had entered by the door behind her, swept her into the dance with him. "But, Sandro!" she exclaimed, resisting, "it is . . . not seemly! What if . . . the servants . . . should . . . see us?"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking