Giovanni slid out of the corner of the sofa like smooth steel springs unfolding; neither hastily, nor with effort.  She watched him; fascinated by his grace and litheness.  Suddenly, though, she felt uncomfortably certain that he knew what was passing in her mind, and this conviction immediately put her out of humor.  For the space of a few minutes she disliked him.  He seemed to know that too, for his next sentence was: 

“Are all young girls in America so unreasonably capricious, so whimsically balanced mentally as—­a young girl I once met?”

“How was she?” Nina’s curiosity was aroused in spite of her.

“Very inexperienced, and therefore uncertain.  Like the person who in dancing counts one, two, three—­one, two, three, for fear of losing time—­or like the inexperienced swimmer who measures constantly the distance to shore.”

“Children, you are chattering nonsense,” the princess interfered.  “Here, you lazy ones, help me to write the invitations!”

Nina arose and went to look over her aunt’s shoulder.  “Oh, but it is for day after to-morrow!” she exclaimed.  “Do you mean to say that any one will come at such short notice?” That the invitations were merely visiting cards with “Informal Dance” written in the corner, and a date not forty-eight hours ahead, astonished her.  She asked about the details.  How could they arrange for the decorations, favors, supper?  But the princess smiled complacently.  Candles were all the decoration necessary! the favors would be trifles that could be bought in half an hour; and as for supper—­what could young people want more than lemonade or tea, sandwiches, and cakes?  The only question was where they should dance.

The princess turned to Giovanni.  “I think it is best in the picture gallery, don’t you?”

“The floor is not so smooth as in the Room of the Aenead, but come, let us go and decide.”  He led the way, and they followed.  The Room of the Aenead was next that in which they were sitting.  The portrait gallery, filled with treasures from the days of Italy’s grandeur, was still beyond.  It was this apartment of all others that most appealed to Nina.  For a moment she forgot why they had come into the gallery, and her attention remained fixed upon the canvases.  With the ever-vigilant Giovanni at her side, she seemed to be walking in a day that was past, to be enveloped in a fairy mantle!  She put her hand on a group said to be the work of Michelangelo, running her fingers over the face of one of the figures with awe in her touch.

“To think,” she said very softly, the wonder breaking through the low tone of her voice, “to think that Michelangelo’s own living hand has been where mine is now—­still more, he has been in this very room!  Not alone he, but Raphael, Correggio, and Pinturicchio!  And all this is called home by my own aunt. Mine!” A little quiver had come into her throat.  “It is too wonderful!  Yet it gives me the strangest