pe very evidently was
business and not the pursuit of the heiress, Giovanni's affability
became genuine.

The end of the matter was that Derby agreed to take up the Sansevero
mine, commonly known as the "Little Devil"; to be worked on a "royalty"
basis. Derby, representing his company, was to pay all expenses, take
all responsibility, and to return to Sansevero a percentage of the
market price on every ton of sulphur taken out of it.

Furthermore, Sansevero insisted upon giving him a letter to the
Archbishop of Vencata, who lived about eight hours on muleback from the
mining settlement. The Sicilians, he declared, were a dangerous people
for strangers who tried to interfere in their established order of
things.

"So then I am likely to have adventures! It sounds exciting!" The
American laughed light-heartedly at the sport of it. However, he
accepted the letter to the archbishop.

CHAPTER XVI

A MENACE

Derby did not realize until afterward that the entire conversation at
the Palazzo Sansevero had been about his projects, and that, aside from
a few generalities, he really knew nothing of Nina's winter or of her
Italian experiences. He returned to his hotel at about five o'clock, and
was striding directly toward the smoking-room without glancing to right
or left among the attractive groups that characterize the tea hour at
the Excelsior, when he was arrested by some one's calling, "Why, John
Derby!"

In the crowd of persons and tables he looked blankly for a familiar
face, but, as his name was repeated, he recognized Mrs. Bobby Davis and
her sister, Mildred Hoyt. As soon as Derby reached their table, Mrs.
Davis glibly rattled off the names of the four or five men who comprised
their party. They were all Europeans, who, in regular afternoon
attire--frock coats, and flower in buttonhole--were sipping tea and
eating cake. Derby was in tweeds, and afternoon tea was by no means part
of his daily program.

However, he made the best of it, and also of the remarks that followed,
for he was sooner seated than Mrs. Davis turned all her powers of
sprightly conversation upon the subject of Nina. Half of the nobility of
Italy, she averred, were sighing--or busily doing sums--at the feet of
the American heiress. There was a particularly fascinating Sansevero--he
was not called Sansevero, but di Valdo (curious custom of having half a
dozen names for one person!), who, it was rumored, was simply mad about
Nina! People