“I have found at least one thing you could do!” she laughed.  “You’d make a wonderful guide for Cook’s.”

But he was not at all amused by this sally; in fact, he let her see that he was annoyed.  This same sort of unexpected response had baffled her several times before.  Any American youth would have fallen into the manner of a guide at once.  She remembered that John Derby on one occasion, at a County fair, had insisted upon climbing on the stand of a barker and was the success of the show.  On the other hand, this Italian prince appreciated things which John Derby would have brushed aside.  He was a delightful companion, the most delightful she had ever known, but every now and then he became suddenly and inexplicably offended—­and always over some stupid trifle, like this suggestion of hers about Cook’s.

“I only meant,” she ventured appeasingly, “that you hold all of Rome’s history in the palm of your hand.  Is there anything that you don’t know?”

His gesture was expressive.  He raised his eyebrows and opened both hands palms upward.  “I am Roman—­since a thousand years.”

Nina changed the subject.  “I wish,” she said, “that they had wheeling chairs with head rests.  I have a crick in my neck and my eyes are going crossed from looking so much at ceilings.”

Giovanni’s ill temper had been for a moment only.  He smiled now and whimsically suggested that they write to the director of the Vatican asking that litters be provided.  Why not?  He grew quite enthusiastic over his description of how charming she would look between tall negro bearers, with a little black boy trotting beside her, carrying a long fan—­no, in place of the fan he should carry a little stove.

“My idea was not half so picturesque,” she laughed in answer.  “I think I had a dentist’s chair in mind—­a red fuzzy plush one on wheels.”

“And with me to push it?” He said it eagerly enough.  Here was a contradiction of his late irritation!  She did not dare, as a matter of fact, to answer; his melodies and his discords were too easily transposed.

She turned her attention to the fresco before her; it was one with the portrait of the kneeling Borgia.

“He looks like a burglar!” she exclaimed with a shudder.  Then she hesitated, but Giovanni’s mood being too uncertain to take into consideration she finished her sentence, “Do you know who he looks like—?  The Duke Scorpa.”

Again he was angry.  “Please, Miss Randolph, do not say anything of that sort.”

“But why shouldn’t I?” She colored under his reproof, but held to her point.

“Because you are of the household of the Sansevero.  A little remark—­even so little as a tenth of that, might be imprudent.  Rome is to-day almost what it was.  There still is a very frail bridge uniting the Scorpas and the Sanseveros; the ravine is always there; a torrent from the glacier may descend at any time.”

“Then I shall say it in a whisper!  He looks like a burglar, and like a cut-throat and—­like Scorpa!”