At once his gay humor changed to sulkiness. “Va bene, va bene! let us drop that subject.”

Immediately the princess softened, as though she had unthinkingly hurt him, “I did not mean it as a complaint; but you know, dear, we do have to be careful.”

But the prince stared moodily at his finger-nails.

She began a new topic cheerfully.  “I hope to get a letter from Nina to-day; there has been time for an answer.”

Sansevero had been quite interested in the idea of a possible visit from Nina Randolph, his wife’s niece, a much exploited American heiress.  But now he paid no attention.  He still stared at his nails.  The princess scrutinized his face as though in the habit of reading its expression, and at last she said gently: 

“What have you in mind, dear?  Tell me—­come, out with it, I see quite well there is something.”

For answer he sat up, took a cigarette from his pocket, put it between his lips, searched in both pockets for a match, and, failing to find one, sat with the unlighted cigarette between his lips, sulkier than ever.

He felt her looking at him, and swayed his shoulders exactly as though some one were trying to hold him.  “Really, Leonora,” he burst out, “this question of money all the time is far from pleasant!”

A helpless, frightened look came into her face.  It grew suddenly pinched; instinctively she put her hand over her heart.

“I have not mentioned money.”  She made an effort to speak lightly, but there was a vibration in the tone.  Then, as though gathering her strength together, she made a direct demand: 

“Alessandro, tell me at once, what have you done?”

For a moment he looked defiant, then shrugged his shoulders.  “Well, since you will know——­” he sprang from the bed, pulled a letter out of his pocket, and, quite as a small boy hands over the note that his teacher has caught him passing in school, he tossed her the envelope, and left the room.

Her fingers trembled a little in unfolding the paper; and she breathed quickly as she read.  For some time she sat staring at the few lines of writing before her.  Then suddenly thrusting her feet into fur slippers, she ran into the next room.  “Sandro,” she said, “come into my sitting-room; I must speak with you.”

He followed her through her bedroom into an apartment much smaller and, unlike the other two rooms, quite warm.  Just now, all the articles of a woman’s toilet were spread out on a table upon which a dressing-mirror had been placed; and close beside a brazier of glowing coals was a portable English tub; the water for the bath was heating in the kitchen.

Seeing that there was no means of avoiding the inevitable, he said doggedly:  “I thought to make, of course, or I would not have gone into the scheme.”  Then something in her face held him, and at the same time his impulsive boyishness—­a little dramatic, perhaps, but only so much as is consistent with his race—­carried him into a new mood.