onora's income would live like a queen!"

"Be silent!" Sansevero, flushing darkly, flamed into speech. "Before
you dare to criticise the woman who adorns our house! Here is the truth
for you: I haven't one cent of private fortune--I gambled it all away
long ago! More than half of Leonora's money is lost--I lost it. Some of
it she paid out for my debts; the greater portion I put into the 'Little
Devil' mine. I might much better have shoveled it into the Tiber. Do you
know what she has done--the woman whom you criticise as a bad manager
and stigmatize as mean--I would not care what you said, if you had not
thought Leonora mean! _Dio mio_, MEAN! Know, then, that the very jewels
she wears are false; that the real ones have been sold--to pay the debts
of the man standing before you--the gambling debts of the head of one of
the noblest houses in Italy!"

Giovanni was deeply moved, for this was a wound in his one vulnerable
point, his pride of birth. The cigarette dropped to the floor unheeded.
He moistened his lips as Alessandro continued:

"They were Leonora's own jewels that were sold, mark you. The Sansevero
heirlooms will go to your son's wife intact, as they came to mine! But
that is not all: I have given my oath to Leonora never again to go into
a game of chance, and really I want to keep it! Yet you know--no, you
don't; no one can who hasn't the fever in his veins--if I see a game, it
is as though an unseen force had me in its grip, drawing me against my
will; I can't resist! At Savini's I was dining, and I did not know they
were going to play--I won a very little; enough to pay the interest on
what I owe Meyer. But it makes me cold all over to think--_if_ I had
lost! An enviable inheritance you will get, when it is known what a mess
of things the present holder of the title has made!" He dropped into a
chair opposite his brother, and buried his face in his hands; between
his slim fingers his forehead looked dark, and his temple veins swollen.
For a long time Giovanni sat immovable, staring fixedly, but when at
last he broke the silence, he spoke almost lightly:

"It is not a very charming history that you have given me--even though
it increases my admiration for the woman who has, it seems, been more
worthy of the name she bears than has the man who conferred his titles
upon her. I wish you had told me before." Then, with a queerly whimsical
smile, he said musingly: "To marry the girl with the golden hair--and
purs