APPLES OF SODOM
"It amounts to this: do you take a fitting interest in the name you
bear, or do you not?" Sansevero was the speaker, and beneath his usual
volubility there was an unwonted eagerness. The two brothers were in
Giovanni's apartment on the second floor, which in Roman palaces usually
belongs to the eldest son, and Giovanni sat astride a chair, his arms
crossed over the back.
"I don't think you can ask such a question," he retorted hotly. "I am as
much a Sansevero as you! But I really see no reason why--just because
you have got a notion in your head that a pile of gold dollars would
look well in our strong box--I should tie myself up for life. I am well
enough as I am. My income is not regal, but it suffices."
Sansevero, like many talkative persons, was too busy thinking of what he
was going to say next himself, to listen attentively to his brother's
responses. He was merely aware that Giovanni's manner proclaimed
opposition, so, when the sound of his voice ceased, Sansevero continued:
"Nina is all the most fastidious could ask. _Noblesse oblige_--are you
going to keep our name among the greatest in Rome, or are you going to
let it fall like that of the Carpazzi? Shall they say of us in the near
future, as they say of them to-day: 'Ah, yes, the Sanseveros were a
great family once, but they are all dead or beggared now'?"
"_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!"
"Be silent!" Sansevero, flushing darkly, flamed into speech. "Before
you dare to criticise the woman who adorns our house! Here is the truth
for you: I haven't one cent of private fortune--I gambled it all away
long ago! More than half of Leonora's money is lost--I lost it. Some of
it she paid out for my debts; the greater portion I put into the 'Little
Devil' mine. I might much better have shoveled it into the Tiber. Do you
know what she has done--the woman whom you criticise as a bad manager
and stigmatize as mean--I would not care what you said, if you had not
thought Leonora mean! _Dio mio_, MEAN! Know, then, that the very jewels
she wears are false; that the real ones have been sold--to pay the debts
of the man standing before you--the gambling debts of the head of one of
the noblest houses in Italy!"
Giovanni was deeply moved, for this was a wound in his one vulnerable
point, his pride of birth. The cigarette dropped to the floor unheeded.
He moistened his lips as Alessandro continued:
"They were Leonora's own jewels that were sold, mark you. The Sansevero
heirlooms will go to your son's wife intact, as they came to mine! But
that is not all: I have given my oath to Leonora never again to go into
a game of chance, and really I want to keep it! Yet you know--no, you
don't; no one can who hasn't the fever in his veins--if I see a game, it
is as though an unseen force had me in its grip, drawing me against my
will; I can't resist! At Savini's I was dining, and I did not know they
were going to play--I won a very little; enough to pay the interest on
what I owe Meyer. But it makes me cold all over to think--_if_ I had
lost! An enviable inheritance you will get, when it is known what a mess
of things the present holder of the title has made!" He dropped into a
chair opposite his brother, and buried his face in his hands; between
his slim fingers his forehead looked dark, and his temple veins swollen.
For a long time Giovanni sat immovable, staring fixedly, but when at
last he broke the silence, he spoke almost lightly:
"It is not a very charming history that you have given me--even though
it increases my admiration for the woman who has, it seems, been more
worthy of the name she bears than has the man who conferred his titles
upon her. I wish you had told me before." Then, with a queerly whimsical
smile, he said musingly: "To marry the girl with the golden hair--and
purse? Not such a terrible fate to look forward to, after all! She would
demand a great deal, and I should have to keep the brakes on.
Still--that would do me no harm! You look as though you had been down a
sulphur mine. Come, cheer up--all may yet be well." Suddenly he laughed
out loud. "Funny thing," he observed further--"you know, I am not so
sure that I am not rather in love."
He leaned to St. Anthony, and, putting his hand through the dog's collar
beneath the throat, lifted the head on the back of his wrist. "Tell me,
_padre_, am I in love? Do you advise the marriage?" The dog put his paw
up, fanned the air once in missing, and let it rest on his master's
knee.
Giovanni laughed aloud "_Ecco!_ Sandro, he consents!"