The baldness of the question left Nina for the moment speechless; then presently, “I have what father gives me,” she answered evasively.

“But you are the only child of the American multimillionaire, ’Jemmes Ronadolf,’ yes?”

Nina nodded in affirmative.

“The Duke Scorpa, with whom you danced just now, is my son!” Her manner clearly demanded that the American girl recognize the great favor that she had received.  “He is my only son,” she reiterated, “and the head of the family of the Scorpa.  You must come to tea to-morrow.  I especially invite you, though we are regularly at home.”

The condescension of her demeanor can hardly be described.  Nina turned helplessly toward the Princess Malio, but found in her a new inquisitor:  “American fathers are proverbially generous”—­her ingratiating smile so ill suited her features that it seemed almost not to belong to her—­“of course your dot will be colossal?”

Again Nina gasped, but before she was obliged to answer the Marchesa Valdeste laid her hand upon her arm.  “Come, my dear,” she said, with her soft Sicilian accent, “it is a pity to miss so much dancing.  It is not right for a young girl to sit with old ladies at a ball,” and, holding Nina’s hand in hers, she led her away.  They had taken only half a dozen steps when she tapped a young officer lightly with her fan.

He wheeled quickly.  “Ah, Marchesa!” He bowed ceremoniously.

“Count Tornik,” said the marchesa, “will you take Miss Randolph to the Princess Sansevero, or where her numerous partners may find her?”

Count Tornik bowed again, this time to Nina.  “Will you dance?  I don’t dance as well as di Valdo.”  Nina looked up at him, suspicious and displeased, but there was no conscious deprecation in his manner, which indeed proclaimed that whether he danced well or badly was a matter unlike unimportant to him.

“Yes, let us dance,” she said.

As he put his arm around her it seemed to her that “an animated tin soldier” expressed him perfectly.  He held her stiffly, and so closely that her nose was crushed against the gold braiding of his uniform.  He was so tall, and his shoulders were so square, that she could not see over them, and to add to her discomfort, he danced, not as did the Italians, but round and round like a whirling dervish.  Before they had gone ten yards she was so dizzy and uncomfortable that she stopped.

Again Tornik bowed, offered his arm, and without addressing a further remark to her, led her to the Princess Sansevero.  As he took leave of her his expression showed a glimpse of understanding, a momentary illumination.  She felt for an instant a possibility of his attractiveness, but just as she became curious he was gone.

The men she met after this were a mere succession of dancing figures, and at the end of the evening, when her aunt came into her room to kiss her good night, she could sleepily distinguish only one or two people out of the kaleidoscope of confused impressions.  And even these few melted off into shadows as she danced on and on through dreamland with Giovanni, amid gardens and marble statues, to the magic rhythm of wonder-world music.