.

"With Scorpa?" She tried to hold his attention. "What are you going to
see _him_ about?"

Derby seemed preoccupied.

"I don't think I'm very sure myself--further than that he wants to buy
my patents, which I have no intention of selling, and I want to rent his
mines, which he has no intention of renting. Rather asinine, going to
see him! Still, as he insists----" There was an eagerness in Derby's
face inconsistent with the shrugging of his shoulders.

But Nina's thoughts were not on the processes of mining just then,
though they were on Scorpa. She looked at Derby appealingly.

"Jack!"

"Yes, Nina?"

"Do you know what I think?--Aunt Eleanor won't say a word; she hides it
all she can, but she must have lost almost her entire fortune. Jack, do
you think that Duke Scorpa could be at the bottom of it?"

Derby gave her a glance of keen interest, but he expressed no surprise
and asked her no questions. As a matter of fact, the gossip of the
Cook's guide had partly prepared him for Nina's revelation about her
aunt's fortune, and he had his own theories about Scorpa. "Quite
likely," he answered dryly, "but it is also quite likely that we shall
get the better of him----" Then, with a sudden change in his manner he
looked at her steadily. "But perhaps you don't want us to get the better
of him?"

"Do you mean----?"

"I hear he is very devoted--and he has not only the handle to his name
that you women seem to be keen about, but he is too rich to be after
your money." Derby had no sooner said the words than he regretted them.
But seeing Nina color, he misinterpreted her feelings, and spoke under a
sudden flash of jealousy. "And I suppose the title of duchess is
irresistible."

Nina was deeply hurt. "That is pretty blunt," she said, the pupils of
her eyes contracted as though the sun blinded them. "Have you ever seen
the man you speak of? No? Well, you would not say such a thing if you
had. I _hate_ him!"

Derby seemed fated to blunder. Again he made the wrong remark. "Hate,
they say, is next to love."

His lack of insight, so palpable in contrast with Giovanni's keenness of
perception, was too much for Nina's new sensitiveness. She suddenly
congealed, and stood up, very straight, with the little upward tilt of
the chin that indicated fast approaching temper.

Derby knew this symptom well enough, but he had not the slightest idea
that his own obtuseness was the cause. Without analyzing, he accepted
her startin