comfortable! Yes?
Of course it is!" He laughed. "My apple is bigger than your apple. My
doll is bigger than your doll! What children you are, you Americans!"

"If we are children," retorted Nina, piqued by his laughter, "we must be
granted the advantages of youth!"

With a sudden gravity, but none the less mockingly, Giovanni besought
her for enlightenment.

"We gain in enthusiasm, energy, and honesty," she announced
sententiously. "A country and a people never attain perfection of finish
until they have begun to grow decadent. I'd rather have my doll and my
big apple than sit, like an old cynic, in the corner, watching the
children play!"

She was immensely pleased with this speech,--mentally she quite preened
herself. Giovanni looked amused, but the Contessa Potensi caught his
glance from across the house, and his smile faded as he bowed. Nina, who
had good eyes, saw a complete change in her face as she returned his
salutation.

"Do you like that woman?"

"She is one of the beauties of Rome," he said evasively.

"No, but do you like her?" Nina could not herself have told why she was
so insistent.

"She is an old friend of mine," he said lightly; then changed the
subject. "Do you follow the hounds, Miss Randolph?"

"At home, yes." But she came back to the former topic. "Does she ride
very well, the Contessa Potensi?"

"Wonderfully." This time he answered her easily. "But I am sure you ride
well, too. Any one who dances as you do, must also be a horsewoman."

There was something in Giovanni's manner that excited suspicion, but she
did not know of what. She half wondered if there had been a love affair
between him and the Contessa. Maybe he had wanted to marry her and she
had accepted Potensi instead. She wondered if Giovanni still cared; and
for a while her sympathy was quite aroused.

The curtain went up and every one stopped talking. At the beginning of
the _entr'acte_ Giovanni left the box, and Count Tornik took his chair.
He was a strange man, but Nina was beginning to like him.
Notwithstanding his brusque indifference, he had a charm that he could
exert when he chose. Giovanni's speeches were no more flattering than
Tornik's lapses from boredom.

As a matter of fact, in spite of his assumed bad manners, the social
instinct was so strong in him that, just as a vulgar person shows his
origin in every unguarded moment or unexpected situation, Tornik's good
breeding was constantly revealed. And in app