As soon as the family had entered, the tea-tray was brought in and placed near the fire.  Following the Roman custom, according to which the daughter of the house pours the tea, the princess motioned Nina to fill the office, and she herself sat at her desk and began rapidly writing on a pad of paper.  Giovanni carried tea and muffins to her, while Nina poured out her own cup and helped herself to a third cake.

“Are these really so good?” she asked half wistfully.  “Or are even these little cakes seemingly delicious only because they are in Rome?  I am sure the cook at home made plenty that were every bit as good!” She said this last as though to convince herself.

“They are wonderful little cakes—­they are very celebrated!” Giovanni said it with an aggrieved air that made Nina laugh.  As though wilfully misunderstanding her, he turned to his sister-in-law.

“Such curious ideas Miss Randolph has about Rome!  One would suppose, to hear her, that it was a land of witchcraft—­even our food is to be taken with suspicion.”

“Not at all,” retorted Nina, with a turn of manner that would have done credit to an Italian, “a land of enchantment, which makes ordinary cakes—­very ordinary little cakes, I tell you!—­seem small squares and rounds of ambrosia.  And, furthermore—­I can assure you it is much more comfortable here than in the country.”

If Giovanni thought she was going to stay sentimental very long, he did not know the American temperament.  For she now went into a long dissertation upon the discomfort of Torre Sansevero, where she nearly froze to death.  Candle light she had not minded, though she much preferred electricity.

“Have you entirely obliterated the gardens from your memory, Mademoiselle?” Giovanni asked in an undertone, and with a romantic inflection.  But Nina’s mood was not, at that moment, attuned to gardens.

“Ah, I love Rome—­just Rome itself!  There is no other such place in all the world!  I thought I loved Paris.  Paris is gay and beautiful.  But Rome is glorious—­splendid!”

Giovanni’s chagrin at her apparent indifference to the gardens was changed to enthusiasm at her appreciation of his beloved city, for to have her love Rome was like having her love the greater portion of himself—­who was but part of Rome.

“The only detriment is,” continued Nina, “that at night I dream of marble statues parading against backgrounds of cobalt blue under groined arches of gold—­like the ceilings in the rooms of the Borgias and—­this one!  Why this is exactly like them!  There is the same face as the St. Catherine——­” then suddenly she sat up, leaning eagerly forward—­“Auntie Princess, I don’t want to have a party at all!  I don’t want to meet people!  I like to think of Rome as inhabited with those of long ago.”  Then with one of her sudden checks upon a tendency to become over sentimental, she added gaily, “The little cakes of to-day, are good at all events!  Give me another, please!”