“Whose reason was that?”

“Scorpa’s own!” He danced a few steps in his excess of delight.

His wife arose and put her hand on his arm.  “To please me, do not send the picture.  I can sell the jewels and have false stones put in their places.  We need not have any one know.  But I don’t want to remain in the duke’s debt!”

“The picture is already in his possession.”

“In his possession?  But how?”

“He drove over here just now, followed me in his motor-car, and took it back with him.”

The princess was evidently frightened.  “What are his reasons?” she said to herself, yet audibly.

Her husband looked at her, his head a little on one side, then he said banteringly:  “My dear, you Americans are too analytical.  You always look for a motive.  Life is not of motive over here.  Have you not learned that in all these years?  We act from impulse, as the mood takes us—­we have not the hidden thought that you are always looking for.”

“You speak for yourself, Sandro mio, but all are not like you.  However, since the picture is gone—­and since you have made that arrangement—­let it be.  I may do Scorpa injustice; he has always professed friendship for you—­as indeed who has not?” She looked at him with the softened glance that one sees in a mother’s face.

Sansevero seated himself at the desk and took up the photograph of Nina.  “When will she arrive?” he asked buoyantly; then with sudden inspiration, “Write to Giovanni and ask him to hurry home.  If Nina should fancy him, what a prize!”

The princess frowned.  “On account of her money, you mean?”

“Ah, but one must think of that!  We have no children; all this goes to Giovanni—­with Nina’s immense fortune it would be very well.  We could all live as it used to be; there are the apartments on the second floor in Rome, and the west wing here.  I can think of nothing more fitting or delightful.  Has she grown pretty?”

“I don’t know that you would call her pretty,” mused the princess.

“Besides you, my dearest, a beauty might seem plain!” His wife tried to look indifferent, but she was pleased, nevertheless.

“Tell me, Sandro, you flatterer, but tell me honestly, am I still pretty?  No, really?  Will Nina think me the same, or will her thought be ’How my Aunt has gone off’?”

Melodramatically he seized her wrists and drew her to the window; placing her in the full light of the sun, he peered with mock tragedy into her face.  “Let me see.  Your hair—­no, not a gray one!  The gold of your hair at least I have not squandered—­yet.”

“Don’t, dear.”  She would have moved away, but he held her.

“Your face is thinner, but that only shows better its beautiful bones.  Ah, now your smile is just as delicious—­but don’t wrinkle your forehead like that; it is full of lines.  So—­that is better.  You make the eyes sad sometimes; eyes should be the windows that let light into the soul; they should be glad and admit only sunshine.”  Then with one of his lightning transitions of mood, he added, not without a ring of emotion, “Mia povera bella.”