The gesticulations of the men around her, their airs and
blandishments, annoyed her. Not an hour earlier she had found John dull
and flat by comparison with Europeans. Now suddenly they were effeminate
dandies, and John alone was a real man.
But the exhilaration of jumping brought her to a more equable frame of
mind, and at the first check she and the Prince Allegro were in the
lead. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright from the long gallop.
They had stopped on a knoll out on the Campagna, and Nina remained apart
from the other hunters, walking her horse slowly, while Allegro went
over to the carriage to get a handkerchief for her from the Princess
Sansevero. She drew in deep breaths of the fresh air, as she gazed out
over the rolling hills to the snowclad tops of the Albanian mountains
glistening in the sunshine.
Then suddenly a deep, oily voice jarred through her wandering thoughts.
"You are very pensive!" exclaimed the Duke Scorpa, appearing beside her.
Nina started violently, for, besides his unexpected appearance, there
was something in this man's personality that always sent a shudder
through her.
"The Marchese di Valdo has been telling me that I am very gay," she
answered, not so much to give the duke the information as to contradict
him.
"Then I am doubly sad, since you are gay with others, and absent-minded
when I come.
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