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Updated: June 12, 2025
The more Derby studied the man, the more certain he became that he was no mere skulking coward. At last Porter and the padre appeared over the hill. No sooner had the priest caught sight of the prisoner than he exclaimed, "Per l'amor di Dio! It is Luigi Calluci!" There was added horror in his tone as he whispered, "Signore, Signore, he is the body servant of the Duca di Scorpa!"
The baldness of the question left Nina for the moment speechless; then presently, "I have what father gives me," she answered evasively. "But you are the only child of the American multimillionaire, 'Jemmes Ronadolf, yes?" Nina nodded in affirmative. "The Duke Scorpa, with whom you danced just now, is my son!"
He flattered her by his assumption that she was a woman of the world, and he disguised the exaggeration of his expressions in such a way that she thought he was speaking but the barest truth. For instance, he dilated upon the particular qualities for which Nina herself adored the princess, until it became apparent to her that, after all, Scorpa must be a man of sensitive perceptions.
She tried to look unconcerned, but her face was troubled, and she drew Zoya out of her aunt's hearing. "It is rumored that you lost your temper oh, but entirely! and walked yourself out of the Palazzo Scorpa without so much as saying good-by or waiting for your chaperon." Nina hesitated, then said in an undertone, "Yes, I am afraid it is true. Was it a dreadful thing to do?"
She tried hard to speak quietly and to keep the tremulousness out of her voice. For answer Scorpa quickly closed the intervening distance between them, and the next thing she knew the grasp of his thick, hot hands burned through the sleeve of her coat, and his face was thrust near to her own.
But that was for a very rich man who has since bought a Velasquez. I doubt if he will buy any more." Scorpa rose as though to leave. "My friend wants five hundred thousand lire." Mr. Shayne laughed scornfully.
"Would any one marry a Sansevero when there is a Scorpa to choose!" "It has happened," chuckled the princess. The threatening break in their habitual politeness was averted by the arrival of a third old lady, the Marchesa Valdeste.
On the evening of the dance the Princess Malio, stiff, thin, and sour, and the old Duchess Scorpa, stolid, ugly, and squat, sat together in a corner of the ballroom that is to say, the picture gallery of the Palazzo Sansevero. "So that is the new American heiress!" said the duchess. "Very presentable, I call her.
"So I told him." The Duke Scorpa lied perfectly. "But it is better, after all, to sell one thing that will bring in a good price than to sell a number of things that bring in little, and yet incur the same amount of risk in getting them out of the country." Here the duke's manner became almost confidential.
There had been a feud between the Sanseveros and the Scorpas for over a century, and while the present generation tried to ignore it, the princess felt instinctively that like the people of Alsace Lorraine, who never really forgave the government that changed their nationality, the Scorpas never forgave the Sanseveros for lands which they claimed were unjustly lost in 1803, when a daughter of the house married a Sansevero and took a portion of the Scorpa property as her dowry.
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