master in the art of making women care for him. That he is fickle
is evident; he is constantly changing his attentions from one woman to
another, and leaving with a crisis of the heart her whom he has lately
adored. I am sorry for the woman he marries--still, perhaps she would
not know the difference! He might even be devoted, from force of habit."

Nina, furious, told herself that she did not believe one word that this
spiteful woman was saying, but it made an impression all the same, which
was, of course, exactly what the contessa wanted.

"Tornik, too, needs a fortune badly," Maria Potensi went on piercing
neatly. "It is hard, over here with us, that men acquire fortunes only
by marriage. In America, it must be better, for there they can earn
their money, and marry for love."

Nina felt her cheeks burn as she listened, but there was nothing she
could say. She knew only too well how hard it would be to believe
herself loved.

But not all of the women were like the Contessa Potensi, and by the time
Nina had been a month in Rome, she had, with the responsiveness of
youth, formed several friendships that were rapidly drifting into
intimacies, though she chose as her associates, for the most part, young
married women rather than girls. Her particular friend was Zoya Olisco,
really six months younger than herself, but of a precocious worldly
experience that gave her at least ten years' advantage.

The young girls were to Nina quite incomprehensible. Their curiously
negative behavior in public, their self-conscious diffidence, seemed to
her stupid; but their education filled her with envy and shame. Nearly
all spoke several languages, not in her own fashion of broken French,
broken German, and baby-talk Italian, but with perfect facility and
correctness of grammar. Nearly all were thoroughly grounded in
mathematics, history, literature, and science. And yet their whole
attitude toward life seemed out of balance; they were like pedagogues
never out of the schoolroom--one moment discoursing learnedly, the next
prattling like little children. The end and aim of life to them was
marriage. Each talked of her dot and of what it might buy her in the way
of a husband, very much as girls in America might plan the spending of
their Christmas money.

In spite of the unusual liberty allowed Nina, as an American, it seemed
to her that she was very restricted. She had, for instance, suggested
that they ask Carpazzi to dine with th