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 house to execute it himself.  The portrait of our ancestor who ordered the statue is in the gallery.”

Before Nina could resist, she found herself being conducted between mother and son through the numerous rooms which terminated finally in the gallery.  Unlike most of the collections of Italy, this included many modern canvases.

Before the portrait of a thin, heavy-boned, frightened-looking English girl, the duke assumed a deeply sentimental air, sighing as though out of breath.  “That is the portrait of my beloved Jane,” he said.  “It was painted by Sargent while we were on our honeymoon.”  The artist, with his consummate skill of characterization, had transferred a crushed, fatalistic helplessness to the canvas.  Nina found herself, partly in pity, partly in contempt, scrutinizing the face of the woman who had brought herself to marry such a man.