inary little cakes, I tell you!--seem small squares and
rounds of ambrosia. And, furthermore--I can assure you it is much more
comfortable here than in the country."

If Giovanni thought she was going to stay sentimental very long, he did
not know the American temperament. For she now went into a long
dissertation upon the discomfort of Torre Sansevero, where she nearly
froze to death. Candle light she had not minded, though she much
preferred electricity.

"Have you entirely obliterated the gardens from your memory,
Mademoiselle?" Giovanni asked in an undertone, and with a romantic
inflection. But Nina's mood was not, at that moment, attuned to gardens.

"Ah, I love Rome--just Rome itself! There is no other such place in all
the world! I thought I loved Paris. Paris is gay and beautiful. But Rome
is glorious--splendid!"

Giovanni's chagrin at her apparent indifference to the gardens was
changed to enthusiasm at her appreciation of his beloved city, for to
have her love Rome was like having her love the greater portion of
himself--who was but part of Rome.

"The only detriment is," continued Nina, "that at night I dream of
marble statues parading against backgrounds of cobalt blue under groined
arches of gold--like the ceilings in the rooms of the Borgias and--this
one! Why this is exactly like them! There is the same face as the St.
Catherine----" then suddenly she sat up, leaning eagerly
forward--"Auntie Princess, I don't want to have a party at all! I don't
want to meet people! I like to think of Rome as inhabited with those of
long ago." Then with one of her sudden checks upon a tendency to become
over sentimental, she added gaily, "The little cakes of to-day, are good
at all events! Give me another, please!"

Giovanni slid out of the corner of the sofa like smooth steel springs
unfolding; neither hastily, nor with effort. She watched him; fascinated
by his grace and litheness. Suddenly, though, she felt uncomfortably
certain that he knew what was passing in her mind, and this conviction
immediately put her out of humor. For the space of a few minutes she
disliked him. He seemed to know that too, for his next sentence was:

"Are all young girls in America so unreasonably capricious, so
whimsically balanced mentally as--a young girl I once met?"

"How was she?" Nina's curiosity was aroused in spite of her.

"Very inexperienced, and therefore uncertain. Like the person who in
dancing counts one, two, three--