“Good!” Mr. Randolph seemed pleased, then asked abruptly, “How well do you speak Italian?”

“Fluently, very; grammatically, not at all.”

Mr. Randolph smiled.  “Fluently will be good enough.  Especially if you pick up an assortment of expletives in the Sicilian vernacular.  Go to Rome first.  Look about and get information on the Sicilian mines, especially those that are unproductive by the present mining system.  Lease one and try your process.  If it works—­we have the biggest thing in the way of a sulphur control imaginable.  You’d better get an option on every sulphur mine you can, to lease on a royalty basis.  Our Italian correspondent will be notified to honor your drafts.  You will have to use your own discretion as to necessary expenses—­of course, you are to send a weekly statement to the office.  The royalty to you on your inventions will be ten per cent. on the net, not the gross, earnings.  Still, if it all turns out well, you ought to make a nice thing out of it.”

A swift gleam of eagerness leaped into the young man’s face.  Mr. Randolph looked at him sharply.  “I did not know that you were so mercenary, John.”

“In my place any man would want millions, or else that——­” He broke off abruptly, leaving his meaning unexpressed.  But his eyes had something wistful in their direct appeal, which perhaps the older man understood, for his expression was unusually kind as he asked with apparent irrelevancy, “Have you heard from Nina?”

Derby flushed even under his tan, but he answered frankly:  “Yes, I have had letters regularly—­bully ones—­full of Italy and the high nobility.  Isn’t it just like her to remember her friends at home!” Then he added ardently, “There was never any one like Nina—­never!  Of course, every man in Italy is in love with her by now.”

“Humph!” was Mr. Randolph’s answer, as his hand went up through his hair until it stood straight on end.  “Had she the disposition of Xantippe and the ugliness of Medusa she would be called a goddess divine by the titled sellers.  But what can I do?  I can’t keep her locked up at home—­for the matter of that, she is run after about as badly over here——­” and he added gently in an altered tone, “My poor little girl!  Sometimes I think how much better off she would have been as the daughter of a man without money.  At present, of course, she is beset with every possible danger.  I don’t think Nina will lose her heart easily, mind you, but there is an underlying excitement in her letters that gives me some uneasiness as to the state of her emotions.  I do not relish the possibility of her marrying one of those ingratiating, cold-hearted, and seemingly ardent noblemen.”  Then, as though to qualify his general statement, he continued, “My sister-in-law married a decent sort of a man, and I imagine they are happy—­but she’d have done much better if she had married your uncle.  He never cared for any one else, and I hoped it would be a match.  But Alessandro Sansevero came along and swept her off her feet.  She was a great beauty, and I believe he married her for love—­which is more than I can hope in Nina’s case.”