“So much the better, so long as the chic is one of appearance and not of personality.  I don’t want my wife to be a siren.”  Suddenly he laughed and hit his brother’s knee.  “But what nonsense!  Imagine a cold American miss having the power to make a man’s pulses leap!  Oh, don’t make a face like that—­I am not speaking of my honored sister-in-law; she is indeed of the true type of our mother.”  Mechanically both men indicated the sign of the cross at the word “mother.”

“But,” continued Giovanni, “I am not exactly worthy of a saint—­it would not suit my disposition.  It is bad enough associating always with good Brother Antonio as it is.  By the way, where is he?”

He gave a shrill whistle and looked back down the road for the gray figure of his inseparable friend and companion:  not a monk as the name indicated, but a Great Dane.  A distant cloud of dust proclaimed that the whistle had been heard.  “Poor Sant Antonio!” he called as soon as the dog had caught up, “Where have you been?  I suppose you were meditating along life’s highway.  No,” he continued, “it were best I did not pretend to be better than I am; my good monk would not absolve me else.  Still, do you know, sometimes I seriously doubt even Brother Antonio’s morals!” He shrugged his shoulders and laughed in great delight.  Sansevero seemed undecided whether to be shocked or amused; ordinarily he would have laughed easily enough, but Giovanni in some way had seemed to involve Eleanor in his levity.

“Well,” continued Giovanni, “I suppose at least Miss America, not being a Catholic, will make no objections to Sant Antonio’s short-comings!”

At this Sansevero bristled, “Giovanni, I will ask you not to air your irreligious remarks about that dog with an unseemly name, in connection with the family of my wife.”

For answer Giovanni blew a whistle into the air.

Sansevero grew sulky.  “I warn you!  Don’t let Leonore hear you make remarks that she might think slighting about her darling!  She is like her own child to her!”

For a few moments both men were silent.  Giovanni’s face was no longer mocking; he was watching the beautiful lope of his huge dog.  Sansevero looked straight ahead, quite pensively for him.  “Poor Leonore,” he said at last.  “It is often such as she who have no children!” Unconsciously he sighed.

Giovanni smiled, “I don’t see what she wants of another child than you!”

“And you will inherit——­”

“Please!  I am not quite so bad as that.  Believe me, I should rejoice for you if you had children.  Leonore would have made a wonderful mother.  Even I might be respectable if a woman such as she loved me as she loves you.  But,” he grew flippant again, “to marry one of those nose-in-the-air, soulless, school-teacher prudes—­Never!  And in any event, my dear, I am not so sure I want to marry your heiress.  I am very well as I am!” He shrugged his shoulders.  A moment later, though, he put a question.  “What is her first name?—­I have forgotten.”