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Updated: June 12, 2025
Derby kept his opinions to himself; but his blood boiled with indignation and, mentally, he resolved to beat Scorpa if it was humanly possible. As Derby was leaving, Nina deliberately went from the room with him. "I want to speak with John a few minutes," she said to her aunt. "We are both Americans, you know," she added, laughing.
"It means a rotten plot neither more nor less to ruin Prince Sansevero, concocted by a man whom the prince believed to be his friend! The Duke Scorpa has just died, which ends the affair for him, but I have the whole chain of evidence that clears the prince. The picture was taken in exchange for a promissory note of the prince's, for one hundred thousand lire.
The prince was glad of his company until Scorpa began: "You have not yet given me a favorable answer to my proposal for Miss Randolph's hand." The abruptness with which the subject was introduced irritated Sansevero, and he answered sulkily: "I told you, when you first spoke to me, that it was a matter Miss Randolph would have to decide for herself.
Now," he added in English, as the footman opened the door, "go upstairs and lie down. I will go back immediately and tell Eleanor that you felt suddenly ill and that the carriage took you home. It is not likely that Scorpa has given any version of the affair." But a new fear assailed Nina. "You cannot go back! The duke will kill you! He would do anything, that man!"
Before he had left Rome, Scorpa had warned him. He rather admired him for that. Derby was heart and soul interested in his settlement. In the short space of time since he had arrived in Sicily, the incredible had already come to pass and to Derby, as he looked forward, there was every reason to feel assured that the settlement would develop as he had planned.
Derby arose and was about to leave when the duke stopped him. Masco sat down to talk with Zoya, and Scorpa spoke to Derby in an undertone. "I hear you are going to Sicily to-morrow?" "Yes, I leave early in the morning." "Take my advice" his glance was sinister "and stay away." Derby smiled frankly. "May I ask why?" "Because your process will not work."
While the voice of the duchess was still echoing in the drawing-room of the Palazzo Scorpa, Nina had thrown herself into the corner of the sofa in her own room. She had a perfectly normal constitution, but she had been not only infuriated and horrified, but really frightened, and her nerves were unstrung.
At first, Sansevero's investment in the "Little Devil" had seemed to Derby merely the unfortunate venture the prince thought it, but when, in the course of their talk, it came out that Scorpa was the "friend" who had sold him the mine, Derby was sure that the duke had deliberately saddled him with a property which he knew to be useless.
That these same lands were distant from either county seat, and of comparatively small value, in no way mitigated the Scorpa resentment, and every time they looked at the map and saw the triangular piece painted over from the Scorpa red to the Sansevero blue, there was bad feeling.
He followed you out of the room and has not been seen since. Giovanni is said to have spoken of seeing him at the club and that is known to be untrue. Carlo was at the Circolo d'Acacia all the afternoon; so was that Ugo Potensi, as well as a dozen others and neither Scorpa nor Giovanni was there! So where is the duke? Come, tell me!"
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