she became curious he was gone.

The men she met after this were a mere succession of dancing figures,
and at the end of the evening, when her aunt came into her room to kiss
her good night, she could sleepily distinguish only one or two people
out of the kaleidoscope of confused impressions. And even these few
melted off into shadows as she danced on and on through dreamland with
Giovanni, amid gardens and marble statues, to the magic rhythm of
wonder-world music.

But while Nina slept with a happy little smile still lying in the
corners of her mouth, the princess in her own room was having an
animated conversation with her husband.

"Leonora, my treasure!" he exclaimed joyously, "things go well for
Giovanni with _la bella_ Nina? _Hein?_ With her fortune! And to have
such an air and grace, too--it is really Giovanni that is a lucky one!"
Before his wife could interrupt he went on, "Five hundred thousand
dollars income--that is to be her dot, isn't it? Why, we can have all
the rooms at Torre Sansevero opened, and you, my beautiful one, shall
have again the comfort that your wretch of a husband has deprived you
of!"

His excited appropriation of Nina's fortune for the general family
coffers jarred; and the princess at once checked his rapidly soaring
imaginings.

"Not so fast! Not so fast! Remember the American girl is used to
arranging her own marriage, and besides . . . for nothing in the world
would I try to influence her. Should it turn out unhappily I could never
forgive myself . . . never!"

Sansevero looked at his wife in open-eyed amazement. "What has come over
you, my dear! I am not proposing to sell your Miss Millions to a rag
gatherer. She has no amount of beauty--yes (as he followed Eleanor's
expression), she has a charming countenance--_molto simpatica_--also a
distinction that is really rarer in your country of beautiful women.
Giovanni, on his side, certainly has all that one could ask in the way
of good looks and intelligence. He is young, and he is the sole heir to
my titles and estates--She would be getting a very good exchange for her
dollars, I am thinking. There is no use to make a face like that; I am
not trying to sell her to an ogre. Why, he does not even gamble----"

"No--but do you think Giovanni can be true to a woman?"

Sansevero laughed. "What would you have? Are you becoming a Puritan
miss, Leonora _mia_?" He shrugged his shoulders. "He is young and he has
heart! Would you have fo