Mademoiselle had sent her to bid him mount to the salon.  Through the green baize doors—­it was the shorter way—­and then, if monsieur would go straight on to the very last of the rooms—­ His striding pace made Celeste fairly trot along at his heels.  He went through room after room.  Was there no end to them?  At last Nina’s slight, girlish figure was seen silhouetted against a broad window at the end—­the light at her back hazing the gold of her hair, like a nimbus, about her face.

She ran toward him, both hands out.  “Jack!  Dear Jack!  Is it you, really, or am I dreaming?  When did you come?  Oh, I am so glad to see you; but what a surprise!  Why did you not send word?”

For a moment a light leaped into Derby’s eyes.  It seemed as though Nina was looking at him exactly as he, in his day dreams, had seen her.  But his prudence steadied his first impulse, and he put down her gladness as merely the joy of a person who, far from home, sees suddenly a familiar face in the midst of strangers; and they sat on the sofa just as they had sat on the railing of the veranda in the country, ever since they were children.

In Derby’s account of himself, Nina could easily read the confidence that had led her father to send him to Italy.  But their talk had gone little further than the barest outline of his mission when the prince and princess returned.  At the sight of Nina sitting alone with a man, the princess came forward quickly with the question, “My child, what does this mean?” as plainly asked in her eyes as it could have been by spoken words.  But at Nina’s “John Derby, Aunt Eleanor!” the princess put out her hand with all the grace in the world, and as she returned the straight, frank look of his blue eyes, her whole expression became youthful, as if reflecting some pleasant memory of her girlhood.

“I knew your uncle very, very well!” She smiled entrancingly.  It was a smile that irresistibly attracted to her all who ever saw it.  “You are like him.”  Then she added softly, dreamingly, as though half speaking to herself, “You remind me of so many things—­at home!”

The next minute she had turned to present Derby to her husband, and the conversation became general.  But, finally, in a pause, Nina said, “Jack, tell Uncle Sandro what father sent you over to do.  Or is it a secret?”

Derby looked toward Sansevero as though measuring the man.  “It is no great secret—­but I would rather it was not spoken of yet.”

“My ears are deaf, and my tongue is dumb.”  Sansevero put his hand over his ear, his mouth, and finally his heart.

“I have come over to buy, or to lease—­at all events, to work—­sulphur mines.”

As though an electric current had been turned on, Sansevero sat up straight, and his levity vanished.  “To work sulphur mines!  Will you tell me more?  I have a particular reason for wanting to know.”