missed the point of most that was said. In the first lull, the Count
Olisco asked her the usual question put to every stranger, "How do you
like Rome?"

The Countess Olisco, like an echo, caught and repeated her husband's
inquiry, "Ah, and do you like Rome?"

And then Carpazzi hoped she liked Rome--and this very harmless subject
was tossed gently back and forth, until Prince Minotti gave it an
unexpectedly violent fling by remarking, "I suppose Signorina, that you
have been impressed"--he held the pause with evident satisfaction--"with
the great history of the Carpazzi, without which there would be no
Rome!"

All at once the young man in the threadbare coat became like a live
wire! His hair, which already was _en brosse_, seemed to rise still
higher on his head, his thin lips quivered, and his hands worked in a
complete language of their own. He put up an immediate barrier with his
palms held rigidly outward. All the table stopped to look, and to
listen.

"Does a Principe Minotti"--he pronounced the word "_Principe_" with a
sneering curl of the lips--"dare to criticize a Carpazzi?" He threw back
his head with a jerk.

"What is he?" whispered Nina to Tornik, who was sitting next her. "Is he
a duke?"

"A Don, that is all, I believe."

Softly as the question was put and answered, Carpazzi heard. Showing
none of the fury of a moment before he spoke suavely, though still with
arrogance.

"Signorina is a stranger in Rome; the Count Tornik also is a foreigner,
which excuses an ignorance that would be unpardonable in an Italian."

Tornik at that moment pulled his mustache, looking at it down the length
of his nose. It was impossible to tell whether the movement hid
annoyance or amusement. Nina was keen with curiosity.

"Of course," Nina said sweetly, eager to soothe his over-sensitive
pride, "I have heard of the Carpazzi, but I do not know what is the
title of your house. I asked Count Tornik whether you were a duke."

"I am Cesare di Carpazzi!" He said it as though he had announced that he
was the Emperor of China.

"The Carpazzi are of the oldest nobility," Giovanni interposed. "Such a
name is in itself higher than a title."

Don Cesare bowed to Don Giovanni as though to say, "You see! thus it
is!"

The subject would have simmered down, had not Tornik at this point set
it boiling, by saying in an undertone to Nina, "Why all this fuss? It is
stupid, don't you think?"

He spoke in French, carelessly articul