The Title Market Part 20

Kate t.i.therington, daughter of Alonzo K. t.i.therington, the Pittsburg iron magnate, had some six years before married the Count Masco. After a short experience of living in his ancestral palace, they had moved into an apartment out in the new part of the city; very handsome, very luxurious and modern in every way. "Deliver me from these musty old dungeons!" she had exclaimed to her husband. "I will give a free deed of gift to the rats, who are really, my dear, the only beings I can think of to whom this tumbledown barracks of yours would be comfortable." Her husband was a meek and inoffensive appendage, who had been well brought up by an overbearing mother and turned over, perfectly trained, to the strenuous requirements of the bonny Kate.

The vivid Countess Masco, _nee_ t.i.therington, was looked upon with disfavor by the more conservative Romans, and her position was rather, one might say, on the outer edge of the inner circle. There were those who liked her, and who found her amusing and lively; indeed, that was the trouble--it was her liveliness that had banished her to the outer edge, instead of making a place for her in the inmost circle, where Eleanor Sansevero, for instance, was so securely established.

Nina had known Kate t.i.therington one summer at Bar Harbor, but her first encounter with this flamboyant personality in Italy was at the Grand Hotel a few days before the hunt. Nina was serving at one of the tables of a charity tea, when she saw a very highly-colored, plump figure, with draperies in full sail, bearing down upon her from the top of the wide steps, at the back of the big red hall. The red of the hall paled beside the cerise costume of the approaching lady. In a voice loud and high-keyed, yet not unmusical, she cried:

"Well, I declare if it isn't little Nina Randolph!" And then with exuberant good humor she called to her husband, who followed lamb-like in her wake, "You see, Gio, it _is_ the little Randolph--I told you so!

"This is my husband." She presented him as though he were some inanimate personal possession. "We have been in Paris and Monte Carlo all winter.

Got back yesterday. Nice old place, Rome, don't you think so? I dote on it, but of course it gets provincial if you stay too long!" At the same moment she caught sight of Zoya Olisco, and waved to her. To Nina's surprise, the young Russian came forward with both hands outstretched.

"Ah, you are back? What was the news in Monte Carlo?"

"Nothing much. They still talk of the _coup_ that Tornik----" But before Nina could hear the end of the sentence, the old Princess Malio handed her a five-_lire_ note for tea, and Nina had to get change. Then the whole family of the Rosenbaums, eight in number, demanded her services for many cups of tea and as many plates of sandwiches and cakes, and when their change was counted, the Countess Kate and her attendant husband were leaving. The countess, however, called back over her shoulder, "You are dining with me on Friday; the princess said yes for you!"

And so it was that on the evening of the hunt Nina, alone with her uncle--her aunt having stayed at home on account of a headache--found herself entering a big new apartment house, and going up in an elevator, quite as though she were at home in one of the most modern, instead of one of the most ancient, cities in the world.

The Masco apartment was all brand-new--so new that there was still about it an odor of fresh paint and plaster, and the pungency of raw textiles.

The Countess Kate, not to be outdone by her decorator, was as new as her surroundings--in the latest style of sheath dress, of a brilliant blue, which she wore triumphantly, regardless of the strain with which it stretched across the amplitude of her bosom.

The company consisted of the Oliscos, Count Tornik, Prince Minotti, Count Rosso, Prince Allegro, Eliot Porter, and John Derby. It gave Nina a sudden feeling of satisfaction to see how attractive John was by comparison with the others. He had a quiet reserve and a forcefulness that Nina thought very effective in this foreign surrounding, and she was ashamed of herself for having judged him by the shallow standard of mere social grace.

The Countess Masco's parties were renowned for their gayety. She was one of those hostesses whose vivacity never relaxes, and whose ready answers pa.s.s for sparkling wit. According to her own standard, a party was a success or a failure as it was noisy or quiet. Consequently she talked and laughed continuously. Startling colors were her particular weakness, and by the scent of extract of tuberose she could be traced for days.

Nina sat between Eliot Porter and the young Prince Allegro; but her attention wandered across the table to John Derby so constantly that the Prince Allegro remarked, "You seem to be entranced by that American!"

"Mr. Derby happens to be my oldest and my best friend!" Nina answered.

Then, realizing that she had made the statement sententiously, she smiled brightly. "You Europeans so often say that American men are unattractive," she said. "Over there you may behold one of 'our best!'"

Without rancor or jealousy, the young prince seemed entirely to agree with her opinion. "Why is it we so seldom meet those Americans you call 'best'?" he asked, between spoonfuls of _puree d'ecrevisse_.

"Because they are those who have to stay at home and work." And then she added, "They are saints--don't you think?"

"They are very stupid, I should say."

Nina let her spoon rest on the rim of her plate. "That's not polite of you."

"Why? Since it is true. Of course they are stupid! They let their women, who are adorable, come over to us. Would I, do you think, if you were my wife, allow you so much as to go out for an afternoon's drive without me? Never! To prove further that your men are stupid--in no country are there so many divorces as in America!"

"It is not because our men are stupid, at all events!"

"Then why is it?"

"Chiefly because our men have too little time to give us." And then she spoke under sudden stress of feeling, without perhaps knowing the full wisdom of what she said: "Do you suppose that if our men at home had time for us, we _would_ come over here, to you?"

"Then all the more are the Americans fools!" He raised his champagne gla.s.s. "Signorina," he said, "may you find the American who _has_ the time."

Involuntarily her glance went toward John. Allegro saw it and laughed.

"Ah, ha! So that is why we have no chance? Still," he added on second thought, "your choice does you credit."

"He is not my choice, he is my friend. You don't understand! At home a girl has men friends exactly as she has girl friends. I wonder how I can make it clear to you--we are all like a big family. They might as well be my brothers, many of the men I know; there is not a bit of sentiment in our liking for each other."

"There is no sentiment between you and the man over there?" Allegro twisted the blond down on his upper lip, laughing at her out of the corners of his eyes. "I may be little more than a boy, signorina, but there is one thing that I know quite well when I see it, and that is a person who is in love. Human nature is the same all over the world. Your American men can, after all, have only the same emotions that we have over here. It is as plain as the dome on St. Peter's--you may see it from every direction. That man over there is in love with you! _Ecco!_"

"He is nothing of the sort! You Italians are mad on the subject. I told you you could not understand. You are different, that is all."

Allegro shrugged his shoulders. "As you please! I tell you he is! And what is more, you are in love with him. After all"--he put up his hand to ward off interruption--"I had much rather think you declined my own suit because your affections were already given before I was so unhappy as to see you, than that, while your heart was still free, you would not consider me."

Nina was so surprised that for a few minutes she was unable to answer.

Allegro had never said a word to her about the proposal which had been made by his family. Up to that moment she had thought he did not himself know of it.

"Heart?" she said, bewildered. "Did you put any heart into the offer that was made? None has ever been shown to me."

"Is there a chance of your considering my suit?" He asked it very seriously.

Nina shook her head, and Allegro sighed as though dejected; then, having paid her this compliment, he became cheerful again and his candor was as delicious as it was astonis.h.i.+ng.

"Shall I tell you? Yes, I will! If you had said 'yes,' I should have found it very easy to love you. As you won't accept my name, however----"

"You don't love me, is that it?" Nina burst out laughing, and Allegro joined light-heartedly, as he nodded his agreement. Their gayety attracted the attention of their neighbors, and for a while the conversation became general. It was suggestive of the Tower of Babel.

Nina had turned to Porter with a remark in English, but Allegro added to it in Italian. Tornik, whose Italian was only slightly more villainous than his English, chimed in across the corner of the table in French, but he soon forgot himself and broke into German. Nina found herself mixing her sentences like Neapolitan ice cream into four languages, until finally she put her hands over her ears and exclaimed, "_Attendez, aspetarre, warten sie nur_, oh, do let us decide on one tongue at a time!" They all laughed, and then, as is usual among a group of various nationalities, the conversation went on in French.

Finally, Tornik and Allegro got into a discussion about the Austrian influence in Italy, and Nina was left _tete-a-tete_ with Eliot Porter.

She had not met him before coming to Rome. He was a Californian. A Westerner, she put it, but he answered her, "Not at all! I am from the Pacific coast!" He was an agreeable man, much liked in Rome, and he was writing a book on Roman society, a fact that greatly amused the Italians. There was some mild and good-naturedly satirical speculation about what he was going to put in it, but beyond the fact that he acknowledged his subject, nothing was known of either his plot or his characters.

"_Do_ tell me what you are going to put in your book. Is it of to-day, or long ago?"

"The story is to be laid in Rome, the theme society, the time the present."

"How fascinating! Ah, please tell me from whom you have drawn your heroine," Nina continued. "Is she rich or poor? Italian, I suppose, and of course young and beautiful! Is the hero a n.o.ble duke or an American on the Prisoner of Zenda or Graustark model?"

"Supposing I should tell you that they were yourself, for the one, and our friend Jack over the way, for the other!"

The coupling of her name with Derby's for the second time in less than half an hour struck Nina, and she became absent-minded; then she said vaguely, "But we are not Italians, either of us."

"Neither are my characters! I will tell you," he said, admitting her to his confidence, "I am going to write of the Expatriates--the people who, to those at home, are always said to be 'abroad.' The story from this side of the water is interesting to me. And the Excelsior is an ideal field for observing them."

"I see!" Then ingenuously, "Are you really going to put Jack in your book?"

Porter smiled, amused. "He hardly corresponds to my aimless nomad wandering hither and yon, with neither ambition nor destination! By the way," he added abruptly, "what do you _think_ of Jack? I am not asking this, mind you, just to make conversation, but because I am interested in him as a national type. I confess I was beginning to think that no woman could care for the men at home as any woman might for the Europeans, until he came along the other day." There was no doubting Porter's enthusiasm as he added, "He gave me back my ideals of my own country! He is _real_, I tell you. But this trip he is going to take into Sicily----"

"There is no danger in this day, surely!" she interrupted.

"I am not so sure of it, they are pesky devils!" Then, appreciating her uneasiness, he tried to rea.s.sure her. "Jack will be all right, he will be well protected. In fact, to show you how little I really fear from the adventure, I am thinking of going with him. My work is getting stale, and a week or two of change of scene would set me up."

"I don't see that your going proves there is no danger. I should never imagine you the type of a coward."

Porter laughed. "Thank you for your good opinion of my type. But I am not at all certain about it myself. If I thought I was going to run any risk of being stabbed in the ribs, or riddled with bullets, I a.s.sure you I would preserve my skin very carefully by staying right here. But to go back to John: Did you ever study physiognomy?" He glanced across at Derby as he spoke.