he end of ten or twelve rooms, each gloomy,
yet over-rich with architectural adornments and modern elaboration, two
lackeys lifted the hangings covering the last doorway, and announced:

"Sua Eccellenza la Principessa Sansevero!"

"Messa Randolph."

The Duchess Scorpa was very gracious to the American heiress. But,
unaccountably, Nina had a strangled feeling, as though she were a bird
and had been enticed into a cage. It was a ridiculous notion, for, even
following out the simile, the door was open, she knew; and, for that
matter, the bars were too far apart to hold her, as soon as she should
choose to slip through. But the feeling of the cage was oppressively
vivid, and she clung as closely to her aunt's side as she could. Friends
of the princess rather monopolized her, however, while the duchess
neglected her other guests to talk to Nina. To add to the girl's
distress, the duke, stroking his heavy chin with his fat hand, stood
beside her chair with what seemed a proprietary air, and a smile that
was intolerable. "Well, my guests," his manner seemed to say, "how do
you like my choice? She is not all that I might ask for, but she will
do--quite nicely."

Nina glanced appealingly at her aunt, but Eleanor's back was turned.
Involuntarily she looked toward the doorway--Giovanni was to meet them
there, and she longed to see his slender figure appear between the
_portieres_, to hear the announcement of the well-known name which was
no less great than that of the odious man who was trying to compromise
her by his air of proprietorship.

Nina could stand it no longer, and sprang to her feet, in the very midst
of a long-winded story about--she had no idea what the duchess was
saying to her, but she realized that she had done an inexcusably
_gauche_ thing, not only interrupting, but in starting to go before her
chaperon made the move. And her discomfiture was increased by a quick
sense of the Potensi's derisive criticism. Recovering herself, she
exclaimed rapidly: "I am so much interested in sculpture; may I look at
that statue?"

The duchess, far from showing resentment at the interruption, was
apparently delighted with the opportunity of impressing upon her guest
the greatness of the palace and the family of the Scorpas. "Certainly,"
she cooed, as nearly as a snapping turtle can imitate a turtledove;
"that is a genuine Niccola Pisano. The original document is still intact
in which he agreed with the cardinal of our hous