“Giovanni!  Nina!” she called, but she might as well have appealed to the wind that blew through the courtyard below, and instead of their heeding she felt her own waist encircled as Sansevero, who had entered by the door behind her, swept her into the dance with him.  “But, Sandro!” she exclaimed, resisting, “it is . . . not seemly!  What if . . . the servants . . . should . . . see us?” But, joining Giovanni in the tune he was whistling, Sansevero seemed to have caught some of his brother’s humor.  If Giovanni had become the spirit of grace, Alessandro had become the spirit of recklessness, and Eleanor was whirled, breathless, not as one dances usually, but madly, so that her feet barely touched the floor.  To add to the revelry of the scene, the Great Dane, who was never far from Giovanni’s side, now joined the general whirl and leaped round and round as though he had but newly come from a bath, his deep bark punctuating the valse the two men were whistling.  The princess felt an apprehensive dread of a servant’s intrusion, and again a breathless “Sandro, stop!” escaped her lips just as——­

The portiere was lifted and the footman announced, “Suo Eccellenza il Duca di Scorpa!”

“Ah, I hope I do not intrude upon the family gaiety!” The duke’s face was insinuatingly bland and his manner smooth as an eel.

The dancers stopped instantly.  The princess flushed, but otherwise only one who knew her intimately might have guessed that she was conscious of having been put in the position of a careless and undignified chaperon.  But she winced inwardly, and felt no reassurance in the knowledge that the duke’s tongue was known to be more skillful in the art of embroidering than the fingers of the most expert needlewoman.  Sansevero followed his wife’s cue, but without feeling her dismay, for he, it must be remembered, liked Scorpa.  He had the naive manner of a child caught doing something foolish, but that was all.  Giovanni welcomed the duke suavely, yet, as the princess led Scorpa into the living rooms, Nina had an exhibition of a real side of Giovanni that she was destined to remember ever after.

She never in her life had imagined that such fury could be depicted in the human countenance.  His nostrils dilated, and his jaw was squared.

“I’ll kill that viper yet!” he muttered between his teeth, and, reaching out for the first thing to hand, his long smooth fingers locked around the neck of the Great Dane—­so tight that the dog, half strangled and snarling, lunged at his tormenter.  Nina cried out in horror, but instantly Giovanni’s temper vanished as it had come.  He relaxed his fingers with a caress; and the animal fawned on him.

“Forgive me, Mademoiselle.”  He said it as lightly as though there had been only some trivial inattention to overlook.

The whole scene had taken place in a moment—­so quickly, in fact, that as Nina and he followed the princess through the adjoining rooms, she half wondered if her senses had deceived her.  What manner of man was this indolent, graceful descendant of a feudal race?  As he approached the duke, Nina unconsciously held her breath.  Half expecting to see them draw daggers then and there, she glanced fearfully from one to the other; but Giovanni, smiling his sleepy-eyed smile, talked as though he thought the duke the most charming man in the world.