“Per Dio! What an orator we are becoming!” mocked Giovanni, looking out of half-shut eyes like a cat.  But after a moment, also like a cat, he opened them wide and stared coolly at his brother.  “Out of the mouth of babes——­” he said impertinently.  “My child, thou hast spoken much wisdom!  It is, after all, a proposition that has, possibly, sense in it. La Nina is a woman such as any man might be glad to make his wife, and yet—­this very fact that she is not an insignificant personality, is what I object to!  I doubt her developing into either a blinded saint or a coquette with amiable complacence for others.  We should lead a peppery life, I fear.  But don’t you think, my brother, that we are a bit hysterical over our family’s extermination?  After all, I am only twenty-eight; and in my opinion thirty-five is a suitable age for a man to marry.  How old are you, Sandro—­thirty-seven, is it not?  And Leonora is nearly three years less.  Of a truth, you are young!”

He rested his cheek in the hollow of his hand, looking up sideways.  “It would be a great amusement if I should marry because I am the heir to the estates, and then you should have a large family—­so——­” He made steps with his unoccupied hand to indicate a succession of children.  Then he laughed, without seeming to consider the difference that the birth of an heir to his brother would make to himself.  He arose, lit a cigarette, and, smoking, threw himself into an easy chair on the other side of the room.  The great Dane, which had been lying beside him as usual, now slowly got up, crossed the room, and dropped down again at his master’s feet.

Meanwhile the prince, hands in pockets, had unaccountably become as silent as he had before been talkative, and Giovanni, upon observing his brother’s sulky expression, leaned forward.

“Well?” he questioned, with a new ring in his voice, for Sansevero’s moodiness was never a good omen.  “What are you thinking of?  Come, say it!”

Sansevero paced the length of the room and back; then he burst out:  “Very well, it is this—­everything is as bad as can be—­so bad that if you don’t marry money, and at once, the Sansevero burial will take place before you and I are dead. Nome di Dio! how are we to live with no money?”

“Since you ask my opinion, I have long wondered why you do not live better than you do,” Giovanni answered.  “Your income, added to Leonora’s money, must make a very handsome sum.  But one of the faults of the American women is that they are seldom good managers.  Leonora is either no exception to the rule—­or else she is getting very miserly.  Why, an Italian on Leonora’s income would live like a queen!”