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