Project Gutenberg's The Innocent Adventuress, by Mary Hastings Bradley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Innocent Adventuress Author: Mary Hastings Bradley Release Date: June 30, 2009 [EBook #29278] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INNOCENT ADVENTURESS *** Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE INNOCENT ADVENTURESS BY MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY AUTHOR OF "THE FORTIETH DOOR," "THE PALACE OF DARKENED WINDOWS," "THE WINE OF ASTONISHMENT," "THE SPLENDID CHANCE," ETC. Publisher's logo D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Copyright, 1920, by The McCall Co., Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY SISTER SYLVIA CORWIN FRANCISCO CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE EAVESDROPPER 7 II. UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY 21 III. LUNCHEON AT THE LODGE 47 IV. RI-RI SINGS AGAIN 67 V. BETWEEN DANCES 88 VI. TWO--AND A MOUNTAIN 106 VII. JOHNNY BECOMES INEVITABLE 127 VIII. JOHNNY BECOMES EXPLICIT 143 IX. MRS. BLAIR REGRETS 157 X. FANTASY 173 XI. MORNING LIGHT 204 XII. JOURNEY'S END 235 THE INNOCENT ADVENTURESS CHAPTER I THE EAVESDROPPER Maria Angelina was eavesdropping. Not upon her sister Lucia and Paolo Tosti whom she had been assigned to chaperon by reading a book to herself in the adjoining room—no, they were safely busy with piano and violin, and she was heartily bored, anyway, with their inanities. Voices from another direction had pricked her to alertness. Maria Angelina was in the corner room of the Palazzo Santonini, a dim and beautiful old library with faded furnishings whose west arch of doorway looked into the pretentious reception room where the fiancés were amusing themselves with their music and their whisperings. It was quite advanced, this allowing them to be so alone, but the Contessa Santonini was an American and, moreover, the wedding was not far off. One can be indulgent when the settlements are signed. So only Maria Angelina and her book were stationed for propriety, and, wanting another book, she had gone to the shelves and through the north door, ajar, caught the words that held her intent. "Three of them!" a masculine voice uttered explosively, and Maria knew that Papa was speaking of his three daughters, Lucia, Julietta and Maria Angelina—and she knew, too, that Papa had just come from the last interview with the Tostis' lawyers. The Tostis had been stiff in their demands and Papa had been more complaisant than he should have been. Altogether that marriage was costing him dear. He had been figuring now with Mamma for a pencil went clattering to the floor. "And something especial," he proclaimed bitterly, "will have to be done for Julietta!" At that the eavesdropper could smile, a faint little smile of shy pride and self-reliance. Nothing especial would have to be done for her! A decent dowry, of course, as befitting a daughter of the house, but she would need no more, for Maria was eighteen, as white as a lily and as slender as an aspen, with big, dark eyes like strange pools of night in her child's face. Whereas poor Julietta——! "Madre Dio!" said Papa indignantly. "For what did we name her Julietta? And born in Verona! A pretty sentiment indeed. But it was of no inspiration to her—none!" Mamma did not laugh although Papa's sudden chuckle after his explosion was most irresistible. "But if Fate went by names," he continued, "then would Maria Angelina be for the life of religion." And he chuckled again. Still Mamma did not laugh. Her pencil was scratching. "It's a pity," murmured Papa, "that you did not embrace the faith, my dear, for then we might arrange this matter. They used to manage these things in the old days." "Send Julietta into a convent?" cried Mamma in a voice of sudden energy. Maria could not see but she knew that the Count shrugged. "She appears built to coif Saint Catherine," he murmured. "Julietta is a dear girl," said the Contessa in a warm voice. "When one knows her excellencies." "She will do very well—with enough dowry." "Enough dowry—that is it! It will take all that is left for the two of them to push Julietta into a husband's arms!" When the Count was annoyed he dealt directly with facts—a proceeding he preferred to avoid at other moments. Behind her curtains Maria drew a troubled breath. She, too, felt the family responsibility for Julietta—dear Julietta, with her dumpy figure and ugly face. Julietta was nineteen and now that Lucia was betrothed it was Julietta's turn. If only it could be known that Julietta had a pretty dot! Maria stood motionless behind the curtains, her winged imagination rushing to meet Julietta's future, fronting the indifference, the neglect, the ridicule before which Julietta's sensitive, shamed spirit would suffer and bleed. She could see her partnerless at balls, lugged heavily about to teas and dinners, shrinking eagerly and hopelessly back into the refuge of the paternal home. . . . Yet Julietta had once whispered to her that she wanted to die if she could never marry and have an armful of bambinos! Maria Angelina's young heart contracted with sharp anxiety. Things were in a bad way with her family indeed. There had always been difficulties, for Papa was extravagant and ever since brother Francisco had been in the army, he, too, had his debts, but Mamma had always managed so wonderfully! But the war had made things very difficult, and now peace had made them more difficult still. There had been one awful time when it had looked as if the carriages and horses would have to go and they would be reduced to sharing a barouche with some one else in secret, proud distress —like the Manzios and the Benedettos who took their airings alternately, each with a different crested door upon the identical vehicle—but Mamma had overcome that crisis and the social rite of the daily drive upon the Pincian had been sacredly preserved. But apparently these settlements were too much, even for Mamma. Then her name upon her mother's lips brought the eavesdropper to swift attention. It appeared that the Contessa had a plan. Maria Angelina could go to visit Mamma's cousins in America. They were rich—that is understood of Americans; even Mamma had once been rich when she was a girl, Maria dimly remembered having heard—and they would give Maria a chance to meet people. . . . Men did not ask settlements in America. They earned great sums and could please themselves with a pretty, penniless face. . . . And what was saved on Maria's dowry would plump out Julietta's. Thunderstruck, the Count objected. Maria was his favorite. "Send Julietta to America, then," he protested, but swallowed that foolishness at Mamma's calm, "To what good?" To what good, indeed! It would never do to risk the cost of a trip to America upon Julietta. Sulkily Papa argued that the cost in any case was prohibitive. But Mamma had the figures. "One must invest to receive," she insisted; and when he grumbled, "But to lose the child?" she broke out, "Am I not losing her?" on a note that silenced him. Then she added cheerfully, "But it will be for her own good." "You want her to marry an American? You are not satisfied, then, with Italians?" said Papa playfully leaning over to ruffle Mamma's soft, light hair and at his movement Maria Angelina fled swiftly from those curtains back to her post, and sat very still, a book in front of her, a haze of romance swimming between it and her startled eyes. America. . . . A rich husband. . . . Travel. . . . Adventure. . . . The unknown. . . . It was wonderful. It was unbelievable. . . . It was desperate. It was a hazard of the sharpest chance. That knowledge brought a chill of gravity into the hot currents of her beating heart—a chill that was the cold breath of a terrific responsibility. She felt herself the hope, the sole resource of her family. She was the die on which their throw of fortune was to be cast. Dropping her book she slid down from her chair and crossed to a long mirror in an old carved frame where a dove was struggling in a falcon's talons while Cupids drew vain bows, and in the dimmed glass stared in passionate searching. She was so childish, so slight looking. She was white—that was the skin from Mamma—and now she wondered if it were truly a charm. Certainly Lucia preferred her own olive tints. And her eyes were so big and dark, like caverns in her face, and her lips were mere scarlet threads. The beauties she had seen were warm-colored, high-bosomed, full-lipped. Her distrust extended even to her coronet of black braids. Her uncertain youth had no vision of the purity and pride of that braid-bound head, of the brilliance of the dark eyes against the satin skin, of the troubling glamour of the red little mouth. In the clear definition of the delicate features, the arch of the high eyebrows, the sweep of the shadowy lashes, her childish hope had never dreamed of more than mere prettiness and now she was torturingly questioning that. "Practicing your smiles, my dear?" said a voice from the threshold, Lucia's voice with the mockery of the successful, and Maria Angelina turned from her dim glass with a flame of scarlet across her pallor, and joined, with an angry heart, in the laugh which her sister and young Tosti raised against her. But Maria Angelina had a tongue. "But yes—for the better fish are yet uncaught," she retorted with a flash of the eyes toward the young man, and Paolo, all ardor as he was for Lucia's olive and rose, shot a glance of tickled humor at her impudence. He promised himself some merry passes with the little sister-in-law. Lucia resented the glances. "Wait your turn, little one," she scoffed. "You will be in pinafores until our poor Julietta is wed," and she laughed, unkindly. There were times, Maria felt furiously, when she hated Lucia. Her championing heart resolved that Julietta should not be left unwed and defenseless to that mockery. Julietta should have her chance at life! Not a word of the great plan was breathed officially to the girl, although the mother's expectancy for mail revealed that a letter had already been sent, until that expectancy was rewarded by a letter with the American postmark. Then the drama of revelation was exquisitely enacted. It appeared that the Blairs of New York, Mamma's dear cousins, were insistent that one of Mamma's daughters should know Mamma's country and Mamma's relatives. They had a daughter about Maria Angelina's age so Maria Angelina had been selected for the visit. The girls would have a delightful time together. . . . Maria would start in June. Vaguely Maria Angelina recalled the Blairs as she had seen them some six years ago in Rome—a kindly Cousin Jim who had given her sweets and laughed bewilderingly at her and a Cousin Jane with beautiful blonde hair and cool white gowns. Their daughter, Ruth, had not been with them, so Maria had no acquaintance at all with her, but only the recollection of occasional postcards to keep the name in memory. She remembered once that there had been talk of this Cousin Ruth's coming to school for a winter in Rome and that Mamma had bestirred herself to discover the correct schools, but nothing had ever come of it. The war had intervened. And now she was to visit them. . . . "You are going to America just as I went to Italy at your age," cried Mamma. "And—who knows?—you too, may meet your fate on the trip!" Mamma would overdo it, thought Maria Angelina nervously, her eyes downcast for fear her mother would read their discomfort and her knowledge of the pitiful duplicity, and her cheeks a quick shamed scarlet. "She will have to—to repair the expense," flashed Lucia with a shrill laugh. "Such expenditure, when you have just been preaching economy on my trousseau!" "One must economize on the trousseau when the bridegroom has cost the fortune," Maria found her wicked little tongue to say and Lucia turned sallow beneath her olive. Briskly Mamma intervened. "We are thinking not of one of you but all. Now no more words, my little ones. There is too much to be done." There was indeed, with this trip to be arranged for before the onrush of Lucia's preparation! Once committed to the great adventure it quickly took on the outer aspects of reality. There were clothes to be made and clothes to be bought, there were discussions, decisions, debates and conjectures and consultations. A thousand preparations to be pushed in haste, and at once the big bedroom of Mamma blossomed with delicate fabrics, with bright ribbons and frilly laces, and amid the blossoming, the whir of the machine and the feet and hands of the two-lire-a-day seamstress went like mad clockwork, while in and out Mamma's friends came hurrying, at the rumor, to hint of congratulation or suggest a style, an advice. The contagion of excitement seized everyone, so that even Lucia was inspired to lend her clever fingers from her own preparations for September. "But not to be back by then! Not here for my wedding—that would be too odd!" she complained with the persistent ill- will she had shown the expedition. Shrewd enough to divine its purpose and practical enough to perceive the necessity for it, the older girl cherished her instinctive objection to any pleasure that did not include her in its scope or that threatened to overcast her own festivities. "That will depend," returned Mamma sedately, "upon the circumstance. Our cousins may not easily find a suitable chaperon for your sister's return. And they may have plans for her entertainment. We must leave that to them." A little panic-stricken, Maria Angelina perceived that she was being left to them—until otherwise disposed of! So fast had preparations whirled them on, that parting was upon the girl before she divined the coming pain of it. Then in the last hours her heart was wrung. She stared at the dear familiar rooms, the streets and the houses with a look of one already lost to her world, and her eyes clung to the figures of her family as if to relinquish the sight of them would dissolve them from existence. They were tragic, those following, imploring eyes, but they were not wet. Maria understood it was too late to weep. It was necessary to go. The magnitude of the sums already invested in her affair staggered her. They were so many pledges, those sums! But America was so desolately far. She could not sleep, that last night. She lay in the big four-poster where once heavy draperies had shut in the slumbers of dead and gone Contessas, and she watched the square of moonlight travel over the painted cherubs on the ceiling. There was always a lump in her throat to be swallowed, and often the tears soaked into the big feather pillows, but there were no sobs to rouse the household. Julietta, beside her, slept very comfortably. But the most terrible moment of all was that last look of Mamma and that last clasp of her hands upon the deck of the steamer. "You must tell me everything, little one," the Contessa Santonini kept saying hurriedly. She was constrained and repetitious in the grip of her emotion, as they stood together, just out of earshot of the Italian consul's wife who was chaperoning the young girl upon her voyage. "Write me all about the people you meet and what they say to you, and what you do. Remember that I am still Mamma if I am across the ocean and I shall be waiting to hear. . . . And remember that but few of your ideas of America may be true. Americans are not all the types you have read of or the tourists you have met. You must expect a great difference. . . . I should be strange, myself, now in America." Maria's quick sensitiveness divined a note of secret yearning. "Yes, Mamma," she said obediently, tightening her clasp upon her mother's hands. "You must be on guard against mistakes, Maria Angelina," said the other insistently—as if she had not said that a dozen times before! "Because American girls do things it may be not be wise for you to do. You will be of interest because you are different. Be very careful, my little one." "Yes, Mamma," said the girl again. "As to your money—you understand it must last. There can be little to pay when you are a guest. But send to Papa and me your accounts as I have told you." "Yes, Mamma." "You will not let the American freedom turn your head. You will be wise—Oh, I trust you, Maria Angelina, to be very wise!" How wise Maria Angelina thought herself! She lifted a face that shone with confidence and understanding and for all her quivering lips she smiled. "My baby!" said the mother suddenly in English and took that face between her hands and kissed it. "You will be careful," she began again abruptly, and then stopped. Too late for more cautions. And the child was so sage. But it was such a little figure that stood there, such young eyes that smiled so confidently into hers. . . . And America was a long, long way off. The bugles were blowing for visitors to be away. Just one more hurried kiss and hasty clasp. An overwhelming fright seized upon the girl as the mother went down the ship's ladder into the small boat that put out so quickly for the shore. Suppose she should fail them! After all she was not so wise—and not so very pretty. And she had no experience— none! The sun, dancing on the bright waves, hurt Maria Angelina's eyes. She had to shut them, they watered so foolishly. And something in her young breast wanted to cry after that boat, "Take me back—take me back to my home," but something else in her forbade and would have died of shame before it uttered such weakness. For poor Julietta, for dear anxious Mamma, she knew herself the only hope. So steadily she waved her handkerchief long after she had lost the responding flutter from the boat. She was not crying now. She felt exalted. She pressed closer to the rail and stared out very solemnly over the blue and gold bay to beautiful Naples. . . . Suddenly her heart quickened. Vesuvius was moving. The far-off shores of Italy were slipping by. Above her the black smoke that had been coming faster and faster from the great funnels streamed backward like long banners. Maria Angelina was on her way. CHAPTER II UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY With whatever emotion Jane Blair had received the startling demand upon her hospitality she rallied nobly to the family call. She left her daughter in the Adirondacks where they were summering and descended upon her husband in his New York office to rout him out to meet the girl with her. "An infernal shame—that's what I call it!" Jim Blair grumbled, facing the steaming heat of the unholy customs shed. "It's an outrage—an imposition——" "Oh, not all that, Jim! Lucy—that's the mother—and I used to visit like this when we were girls. It was done then," his wife replied with an air of equable amusement. She added, "I rather think I did most of the visiting. I was awf'ly fond of Lucy." "That's different. You'll have a total stranger on your hands. . . . Are you sure she speaks English?" "Oh, dear yes, she speaks English—don't you remember her in Rome? She was the littlest one. All the children speak English, Lucy wrote, except Francisco who is 'very Italian,' which means he is a fascinating spendthrift like the father, I suppose. . . . I imagine," said Mrs. Blair, "that Lucy has not found life in a palace all a bed of roses." "I remember the palace. . . . Warming pans!" said Mr. Blair grimly. His ill-humor lasted until the first glimpse of Maria Angelina's slender figure, and the first glance of Maria Angelina's trustfully appealing eyes. "Welcome to America," he said then very heartily, both his hands closing over the small fingers. "Welcome—very welcome, my dear." And though Maria Angelina never knew it and Cousin Jane Blair never told, that was Maria Angelina's first American triumph. Some nine hours afterwards a stoutish gentleman in gray and a thinnish lady in beige and a fragile looking girl in white wound their way from the outer to the inner circle of tables next the dancing floor of the Vandevoort. The room was crowded with men in light serge and women in gay summer frocks; bright lights were shining under pink shades and sprays of pink flowers on every table were breathing a faint perfume into an air already impregnated with women's scents and heavy with odors of rich food. Now and then a saltish breeze stole through the draped windows on the sound but was instantly scattered by the vigor of the hidden, whirling fans. Behind palms an orchestra clashed out the latest Blues and in the cleared space couples were speeding up and down to the syncopations, while between tables agile waiters balanced overloaded trays or whisked silver covers off scarlet lobsters or lit mysterious little lights below tiny bubbling caldrons. Maria Angelina's soft lips were parted with excitement and her dark eyes round with wondering. This, indeed, was a new world. . . . It was gay—gayer than the Hotel Excelsior at Rome! It was a carnival of a dinner! Ever since morning, when the cordiality of the new-found cousins had dissipated the first forlorn homesickness of arrival, she had been looking on at scenes that were like a film, ceaselessly unrolling. After luncheon, Cousin Jim with impulsive hospitality had carried her off to see the Big Town—an expedition from which his wife relievedly withdrew—and he had whirled Maria Angelina about in motors, plunged her into roaring subways, whisked her up dizzying elevators and brought her out upon unbelievable heights, all the time expounding and explaining with that passionate, possessive pride of the New Yorker by adoption, which left his young guest with the impression that he owned at least half the city and was personally responsible for the other half. It had been very wonderful but Maria had expected New York to be wonderful. And she was not interested, save superficially, in cities. Life was the stuff her dreams were made on, and life was unfolding vividly to her eager eyes at this gay dinner, promising her enchanted senses the incredible richness and excitement for which she had come. And though she sat up very sedately, like a well-behaved child in the midst of blazing carnival, her glowing face, her breathless lips and wide, shining eyes revealed her innocent ardors and young expectancies. She was very proud of herself, in the midst of all the prideful splendor, proud of her new, absurdly big white hat, of her new, absurdly small white shoes, and of her new, white mull frock, soft and clinging and exquisite with the patient embroidery of the needlewoman. Its low cut neck left her throat bare and about her throat hung the string of white coral that her father had given her in parting—white coral, with a pale, pale pink suffusing it. "Like a young girl's dreams," Santonini had said. "Snowy white—with a blush stealing over them." That was so like dear Papa! What dreams did he think his daughter was to have in this New World upon her golden quest? And yet, though Maria Angelina's mocking little wit derided, her young heart believed somehow in the union of all the impossibilities. Dreams and blushes . . . and good fortune. . . . Strange food was set before her; delicious jellied cold soups, and scarlet lobsters with giant claws; and Maria Angelina discovered that excitement had not dulled her appetite. The music sounded again and Cousin Jim asked her to dance. Shyly she protested that she did not know the American dances, and then, to her astonishment, he turned to his wife, and the two hurried out upon the floor, leaving her alone and unattended at that conspicuous table. That was American freedom with a vengeance! She sat demurely, not daring to raise her lashes before the scrutiny she felt must be beating upon her, until her cousins returned, warm-faced and breathless. "You'll learn all this as soon as you get to the Lodge," Cousin Jim prophesied, in consolation. Maria Angelina smiled absently, her big eyes brilliant. Unconsciously she was wondering what dancing could mean to these elders of hers. . . . Dancing was the stir of youth . . . the carnival of the blood . . . the beat of expectancy and excitement. . . . "Why, there's Barry Elder!" Cousin Jane gave a quick cry of pleasure. "Barry Elder?" Cousin Jim turned to look, and Maria Angelina looked too, and saw a young man making his way to their table. He was a tall, thin, brown young man with close-cropped curly brown hair, and very bright, deep-set eyes. He was dressed immaculately in white with a gay tie of lavender. "Barry? You in town?" Cousin Jane greeted him with an exaggerated astonishment as he shook her hand. Maria Angelina noted that he did not kiss it. She had read that this was not done openly in America but was a mark of especial tenderness. "Why not?" he retorted promptly. "You seem to forget, dear lady, that I am again a wor-rking man, without whom the World's Greatest Daily would lose half its circulation. Of course I'm here." "I thought you might be taking a vacation—in York Harbor," she said, laughing. "Oh, cat!" he derided. "Kitty, kitty, kitty." "Don't let her kid you, Barry," advised Cousin Jim, delving into his lobster. "But since you are here," went on Cousin Jane, "you can meet my little cousin from Italy, which is the reason why we are here. Her boat came in this morning and she has never been away from home before. Mr. Elder, the Signorina Santonini." "Welcome to the city, Signorina," said the young man, with a quick, bright smile, stooping to gaze under the huge, white hat. He had odd eyes, not large, but vivid hazel, with yellow lights in them. "How do you like New York? What do you think of America? What is your opinion of prohibition and the uniformity of divorce laws? Have you ever written vers libre? Are——" "Barry, stop bombarding the child!" exclaimed Mrs. Blair. "You are the first young man she has met in America. Stop making her fear the race." "Take him away and dance with him, Jane," said Mr. Blair. "This was probably prearranged, you know." If he believed it, he looked very tranquil, the startled Maria Angelina thought, surprised into an upward glance. The two men were smiling very frankly at each other. Mrs. Blair did not protest but rose, remarking, "Come, Barry, since we are discovered. You can have something cool afterwards." "I'll have little Cousin afterwards," said Barry Elder. "I want to be the first young man she has danced with in America." "You won't be the last," Mr. Blair told him with a twinkling glance at Maria Angelina's lovely little face. "One of Jane's youngsters," he added, explanatorily to her. "She always has a lot around—she says they are the companions her son would have had if she'd had one." Then, before Maria Angelina's polite but bewildered attention, he said more comprehensibly, "You'll find Jane a lot younger than Ruth . . . Barry's a clever chap—special work on one of the papers. Was in the aviation. Did a play that fluked last year. Too much Harvard in it, I expect. But a clever chap, very clever. Like him," he added decisively. Maria Angelina had heard of Harvard. Her mother's father had been a Harvard man. But she did not understand just why too much Harvard would make a play fluke nor what a play did when it fluked, but she asked no questions and sat very still, looking out at the dancing couples. She saw her Cousin Jane whirling past. She tried to imagine her mother dancing with young men at the Hotel Excelsior and she could not. Already she wondered if she had better write everything. Then the dancing pair came back to them and the young man sat down and talked a little to her cousins. But at the music's recommencement he turned directly to her. "Signorina, are you going to do me the honor?" He had a merry way with him as if he were laughing ever so little at her, and Maria Angelina's heart which had been beating quite fast before began to skip dizzily. She thanked Heaven that it was a waltz for, while the new steps were unknown, Maria could waltz—that was a gift from Papa. "With pleasure, Signor," she murmured, rising. "But you must take off your hat," Mrs. Blair told her. "My hat? Take off?" "That brim is too wide, my dear. You couldn't dance." "But to go bareheaded—like a peasant?" Maria Angelina faltered and they laughed. "It doesn't matter—it's much better than that brim," Mrs. Blair pronounced and obediently Maria's small hands rose and removed the overshadowing whiteness from the dark little head with its coronet of heavy braids. She did not raise her eyes to see Barry Elder's sudden flash of astonishment. Shyly she slipped within his clasp and let him swing her out into the circle of dancers. Maria Angelina could waltz, indeed. She was fairy-footed, and for some moments Barry Elder was content to dance without speaking; then he bent his head closer to those dark braids. "So I am the first young man you have met in America?" Maria Angelina looked up through her lashes in quick gayety. "It is my first day, Signor!" "Your first American—Ah, but on the boat! There must have been young men on that boat, American young men?" "On that boat? Signor!" Maria Angelina laughed mischievously. "One reads of such in novels—yes? But as to that boat, it was a floating nunnery." "Oh, come now," he protested amusedly, "there must have been some men!" "Some men, yes—a ship's officer, some married ones, a grandfather or two—but nothing young and nothing American." "It must have been a great disappointment," said Barry enjoying himself. "It would not have mattered if there had been a thousand. The Signora Mariotti would have seen to it that I met no one. She is a very good chaperon, Signor!" "I thank her. She has preserved the dew on the rose, the flush on the dawn—the wax for the record and the—er— niche for the statue. I never had my statue done," said Barry gayly, "but if you would care for it, in terra cotta, rather small and neat——" Confusedly Maria Angelina laughed. "And this is your maiden voyage of discovery!" He was looking down at her as he swept her about a corner. "Rash young person! Don't you know what happened to your kinsman, Our First Discoverer?" "But what?" "He was loaded with fetters," said Barry solemnly. "Fetters? But what fetters could I fear?" "Have you never heard," he demanded of her upraised eyes, "of the fetters of matrimony?" "Oh, Signor!" Actually the color swept into her cheeks and her eyes fled from his, though she laughed lightly. "That is a golden fetter." "Sometimes," said he, dryly, "or gilded." But Maria Angelina was pursuing his jest. "It was not until Columbus returned to his Europe that he was fettered. It was not from the—the natives that he had such ill-treatment to fear." "Now, do you think the—the natives"—gayly Barry mimicked her quaint inflection—"will let you get away with that? Or let you return? . . . You have a great many discoveries before you, Signorina Santonini!" Deftly he circled, smiling down into her upturned face. Maria Angelina's eyes were shining, and the smooth oval of her cheeks had deepened from poppy pink to poppy rose. She was dancing in a dream, a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in a confusion of young delight in which the extravagance of his words, the light of his glances, the thrill of the violins were inextricably involved in gayety and glamour. And then suddenly the dance was over, and he was returning her to her cousins. And he was saying good-by. "I have a table yonder—although I appear to have forsaken it," he was explaining. "Don't forget your first American, Signorina—I'm sorry you are going to-morrow, but perhaps I shall be seeing you in the Adirondacks before very long." He gave Maria Angelina a directly smiling glance whose boldness made her shiver. Then he turned to Mrs. Blair. "You know my uncle had a little shack built on Old Chief Mountain—not so far from you at Wilderness. I always like to run up there——" "Oh, no, you won't, Barry," said Mrs. Blair, laughing incomprehensibly. "You'll be running where the breaking waves dash high, on a stern and rock-bound coast." He met the sally with answering laughter a trifle forced. "I'm flattered you think me so constant! But you underestimate the charms of novelty. . . . If I should meet, say, a petite brune, done in cotton wool and dewy with innocence——" "You're incorrigible," vowed the lady. "I have no faith in you!" "Not even in my incorrigibility?" "I'll believe it when I see you again. . . . Love to Leila." He made a mocking grimace at her. Then he stooped to clasp Maria Angelina's hand. "A rivederci, Signorina," he insisted. "Don't you believe a thing she tells you about me. . . . I'm a poor, misunderstood young man in a world of women. Addio, Signorina—a rivederci." And then he was gone, so gay and brown and smiling. Sudden anguish swept down upon Maria Angelina, like the cold mistral upon the southlands. He was gone. . . . Would she really see him again? . . . Would he come to those mountains? But why would he not? He had spoken of it, all of himself . . . he had that place he called a shack. That was beautiful good fortune—all of a part of the amazing fairy story of the New World. . . . And he had looked so at her. He had made such jokes. He had pressed her hands . . . ever so lightly but without mistake. . . . And his eyes, that shining brightness of his eyes. . . . "Why rub it in about York Harbor?" Cousin Jim was speaking and Maria Angelina came out of her dream with sudden, painful intensity. Instinctively she divined that here was something vital to her hope, and while her young face held the schooled, unstirred detachment of the jeune fille, her senses were straining nervously for any flicker of enlightenment. "Why not rub it in?" countered Cousin Jane briskly. "He'll go there before long, and he might as well know that he isn't throwing any sand in our eyes. . . . This sulking here in town is simply to punish her." "Perhaps he isn't sulking. Perhaps he doesn't care to run after her any more. He may not be as keen about Leila Grey as you women think." Maria Angelina's involuntary glance at Mrs. Blair caught the superior assurance of her smile. "My dear Jim! He was simply mad about her. That last leave, before he went to France, he only went places to meet her." "Well, he may have got over it. Men do," argued Cousin Jim stubbornly. "Yes," echoed Maria Angelina's beating heart in hope, "men do!" Cousin Jane laughed. "Men don't get over Leila Grey—not if Leila Grey wants to keep them." "If she wanted so darn much to keep him why didn't she take him then?" "I didn't say she wanted to keep him then." Mrs. Blair's tones were mysteriously, ironically significant. "Leila wasn't throwing herself away on any young officer—with nothing but his insurance. It was Bobby Martin that she was after ——" "Gad! Was she?" Cousin Jim was patently struck by this. "Why, Bobby's just a kid and she——" "There's not two years' difference between them—in years. But Leila came out very young—and she's the most thoroughly calculating——" "Oh, come now, Jane—just because the girl didn't succumb to the impecunious Barry and did like the endowed Bobby ——! She may really have liked him, you know." "Oh, come now, yourself, Jim," retorted his wife good-humoredly. "Just because she has blue eyes! No, if Leila really liked anybody I always had the notion it was Barry—but she wanted Bobby." For a long moment Cousin Jim was silent, turning the thing over with his cigar. Maria Angelina sat still as a mouse, fearful to breathe lest the bewildering revelations cease. Cousin Jane, over her second cup of coffee, had the air of a humorous and superior oracle. Then Mr. Blair said slowly, "And Bobby couldn't see her?" He had an air of asking if Bobby were indeed of adamant and Mrs. Blair hesitated imperceptibly over the sweeping negative. Equally slowly, "Oh, Bobby liked her, of course—she may have turned his head," she threw out, "but I don't believe he ever lost it for a moment. And after he met Ruth that summer at Plattsburg——" The implication floated there, tenuous, iridescent. Even to Maria Angelina's eyes it was an arch of promise. Ruth was their daughter, the cousin of her own age. And the unknown Bobby was some one who liked Ruth. And he was some one whom this Leila Grey had tried to ensnare—although all the time Mrs. Blair suspected her of liking more the Signor Barry Elder. Hotly Maria Angelina's precipitous intuitions endorsed that supposition. Of course this Leila liked that Barry Elder. Of course. . . . But she had not taken him. He was an officer, then—without fortune. Maria Angelina was familiar enough with that story. But she had supposed that here, in America, where dowries were not exigent and the young people were free, there was more romance. And now it was not even Leila's parents who had interfered, apparently, but Leila herself. What was it Mrs. Blair had said? Thoroughly calculating. . . . Thoroughly calculating—and blue eyes. . . . Maria Angelina felt a quick little inrush of fear. If it should be blue eyes that Americans—that is, to say now, that Barry Elder—preferred——! And then she wondered why, if this Leila with the blue eyes had not taken Barry Elder before, Cousin Jane now regarded it as a foregone conclusion between them? Was it because she could not get that Signor Bobby Martin? Or was Barry Elder more successful now that he had left the army? She puzzled away at it, like a very still little cat at an indestructible mouse, but dared say not a word. And while she worried away her surface attention was caught by the glance of candid humor exchanged between Mr. Blair and his wife. "Ah, Jane, Jane," he was saying, in mock deprecation, "is that why we are spending the summer at Wilderness, not two miles from the Martin place——?" Mrs. Blair was smiling, but her eyes were serious. "I preferred that to having Ruth at a house party at the Martins," she said quietly. At that Maria Angelina ceased to attend. She would know soon enough about her Cousin Ruth and Bobby Martin. But as for Barry Elder and Leila Grey——! Had he cared? Had she? . . . Unconsciously her young heart repudiated her cousin's reading of the affair. As if Barry Elder would be unsuccessful with any woman that he wanted! That was unbelievable. He had not wanted her—enough. He could not want Leila now or he would not have spoken so of coming to the mountains to see her—his direct glance had been a promise, his eyes a prophecy. Dared she believe him? Dared she trust? But he was no deceiver, no flirt, like the lady-killers who used to come to the Palazzo to bow over Lucia's hand and eye each other with that half hostile, half knowing swagger. She had watched them. . . . But this was America. And Barry Elder was—different. She was lost to the world about her now. Its color and motion and hot counterfeit of life beat insensibly upon her; she was aware of it only as an imposition, a denial to that something within her which wanted to relax into quiet and dreaming, which wanted to live over and over again the intoxicating excitement, the looks, the words. . . . She was grateful when Cousin Jane declared for an early return. She could hardly wait to be alone. "What did I tell you?" Jane Blair stopped suddenly in their progress to the door and turned to her husband in low- toned triumph. "She's with him. Leila's with him." "Huh?" said Cousin Jim unexcitedly. "She's pretended some errand in town—she's come in to get hold of him again," went on Cousin Jane hurriedly, as one who tells the story of the act to the unobservant. "She's afraid to leave him alone. . . . And he never mentioned her. I wonder——" Maria Angelina's eyes had followed theirs. She saw a group about a table, she saw Barry Elder's white-clad shoulders and curly brown head. She saw, unregardfully, a man and woman with him, but all her eagerness, all her straining vision was on the young girl with him—a girl so blonde, so beautiful that a pang went to Maria Angelina's heart. She learned pain in a single throb. She heard Cousin Jim quoting oddly in undertone, "'And Beauty drew him, by a single hair,'" and the words entered her consciousness hauntingly. If Leila Grey looked like that—why then—— Yet he had said that he would come! Maria Angelina's first night in America, like that last night in Italy, was of sleepless watching through the dark. But now there were no child's tears at leaving home. There was no anxious planning for poor Julietta. Already Julietta and Lucia and the Palazzo, even Papa and dear, dear Mamma, appeared strangely unreal—like a vanished spell—and only this night was real and this strange expectant stir in her. And then she fell asleep and dreamed that Barry Elder was advancing to her across the long drawing-room of the Palazzo Santonini and as she turned to receive him Lucia stepped between, saying, "He is for me, instead of Paolo Tosti," and behold! Lucia's eyes were as blue as the sea and Lucia's hair was as golden as amber and her face was the face of the girl in the restaurant. CHAPTER III LUNCHEON AT THE LODGE Wilderness Lodge, Cousin Jane had said, was a simple little place in the mountains, not a hotel but rather a club house where only certain people could go, and Maria Angelina had pictured a white stucco pension-hotel set against some background like the bare, bright hills of Italy. She found a green smother of forest, an ocean of greenness with emerald crests rising higher and higher like giant waves, and at the end of the long motor trip the Lodge at last disclosed itself as a low, dark, rambling building, set in a clearing behind a blue bend of sudden river. And built of logs! Did people of position live yet in logs in America? demanded the girl's secret astonishment as the motor whirled across the rustic bridge and stopped before the wide steps of a veranda full of people. Springing down the steps, two at a time, came a tall, short-skirted girl in white. "Dad—you came, too!" she cried. "Oh, that's bully. You must enter the tournament—Mother, did you remember about the cup and the—you know? What we talked of for the booby?" She had a loud, gay voice like a boy's and as Maria was drawn into the commotion of greetings, she opened wide, half- intimidated eyes at the bigness and brownness of this Cousin Ruth. She had expected Heaven knows what of incredible charm in the girl who had detached the Signor Bobby Martin from the siren Leila. Her instant wonder was succeeded by a sensation of gay relief. After all, these things went by chance and favor. . . . And if Bobby Martin could prefer this brown young girl to that vision at the restaurant why then—then perhaps there was also a chance for—what was it the young Signor Elder had called her? A petite brune wrapped in cotton wool. These thoughts flashed through her as one thought as she followed her three cousins across the wide verandas, full of interested eyes, into the Lodge and up the stairs to their rooms, where Ruth directed the men in placing the big trunk and the bags and hospitably explained the geography of the suite. "My room's on that side and Dad's and Mother's is just across—and we all have to use this one bath—stupid, isn't it, but Dad is hardly ever here and there's running water in the rooms. You'll survive, won't you?" Hastily Maria Angelina assured her that she would. Glimpsing the white-tiled splendors of this bath she wondered how Ruth would survive the tin tub, set absurdly in a red plush room of the Palazzo. . . . "Now you know your way about," the American girl rattled on, her tone negligent, her eyes colored with a little warmer interest as her glance swept her foreign little cousin. "Frightfully hot, wasn't it? I'll clear out so you can pop into the tub. You'll just have time before luncheon," she assured her and was off. The next instant, from closed doors beyond, her voice rose in unguarded exclamation. "Oh, you baby doll! Mother, did you ever——" The voices sank from hearing and Maria Angelina was left with the feeling that a baby doll was not a desirable being in America. This Cousin Ruth intimidated her and her breezy indifference and lack of affectionate interest shot the visitor with the troubled suspicion that her own presence was entirely superfluous to her cousin's scheme of things. She felt more at home with the elders. Uncertainly she crossed to her big trunk and stood looking down on the bold labels. How long since she and Mamma had packed it, with dear Julietta smoothing the folds in place! And how far away they all were. . . . It was not the old Palazzo now that was unreal—it was this new, bright world and all the strange faces. The chintz-decked room with its view of alien mountains seemed suddenly remote and lonely. Her hands shook a little as she unpacked a tray of pretty dresses and laid them carefully across the bed. . . . Unconsciously she had anticipated a warmer welcome from this young cousin. . . . She winked away the tears that threatened to stain the bright ribbons, and stole into the splendor of the white bathroom, marveling at its luxurious contrast to the logs without. The water refreshed her. She felt more cheerful, and when she came to a choice of frocks, decidedly a new current of interest was stealing through life again. First impressions were so terribly important! She wanted to do honor to the Blairs—to justify the hopes of Mamma. This was not enough of an occasion for the white mull. The silks look hot and citified. Hesitantly she selected the apricot organdie with a deeper-shaded sash; it was simple for all its glowing color, though the short frilled sleeves struck her as perhaps too chic. It had been a copy of one of Lucia's frocks, that one bought to such advantage of Madame Revenant. With it went a golden-strawed hat—but Maria Angelina was uncertain about the hat. Did you wear one at a hotel—when you lived at a hotel? Mamma's admonitions did not cover that. She put the hat on; she took the hat off. She rather liked it on—but she dropped it on the bed at Ruth's sudden knock and felt a sense of escape for Ruth was hatless. And Ruth still wore the same short white skirt and white blouse, open at the throat, in which she had greeted them. . . . Was the apricot too much then of a toilette? Ruth's eyes were frankly on it; her expression was odd. But Mrs. Blair had changed. She appeared now in blue linen, very smart and trim. Worriedly Maria Angelina's dark eyes went from one to the other. "Is this—is this what I should wear?" she asked timidly. "Am I not—as you wish?" It would have taken a hard heart to wish her otherwise. "It's very pretty," said Cousin Jane in quick reassurance. "Too pretty, s'all," said Cousin Ruth. "But it won't be wasted. . . . Bobby Martin is staying to luncheon," she flung casually at her parents. "Has a guest with him. You remember Johnny Byrd." American freedom, indeed! thought Maria Angelina following down the slippery stairs into the wide hall below where, in a boulder fireplace that was surmounted by a stag's head, a small blaze was flickering despite the warmth of the day. Wasteful, thought Maria Angelina reprovingly. One could see that the Americans had never suffered for fuel. . . . Upon a huge, black fur rug before the fire two young men were waiting. Demurely Maria thought of the letter she would write home that night—one young man the first evening in New York, two young men the first luncheon at the Lodge. Decidedly, America brimmed with young men! Meanwhile, Ruth was presenting them. The big dark youth, heavy and lazy moving, was the Signor Bob Martin. The other, Johnny Byrd, was shorter and broad of shoulder; he had reddish blonde hair slightly parted and brushed straight back; he had a short nose with freckles and blue eyes with light lashes. When he laughed—and he seemed always laughing—he showed splendid teeth. Both young men stared—but staring was a man's prerogative in Italy and Maria Angelina was unperturbed. At table she sat serenely, her dark lashes shading the oval of her cheeks, while the young men's eyes—and one pair of them, especially—took in the black, braid-bound head and the small, Madonna-like face, faintly flushed by sun and wind, above the golden glow of the sheer frock. Then Johnny Byrd leaned across the table towards her. "I say, Signorina," he began abruptly, "what's the Italian for peach?" and as Maria Angelina looked up and started very innocently to explain, he leaned back and burst into a shout of amusement in which the others more moderately joined. "Don't let him get you," was Ruth's unintelligible advice, and Bobby Martin turned to his friend to admonish, "Now, Johnny, don't start anything. . . . Johnny's such a good little starter!" "And a poor finisher," added Ruth smartly and both young men laughed again as at a very good joke. "A starter—but not a beginner, eh?" chuckled Cousin Jim, and Mrs. Blair smiled at both young men even as she protested, "This is the noisiest table in the room!" It was a noisy table. Maria Angelina was astounded at the hilarity of that meal. Already she began censoring her report to Mamma. Certainly Mamma would never understand Ruth's elbows on the table, her shouts of laughter—or the pellets of bread she flipped. And the words they used! Maria could only feel that the language of Mamma must be singularly antiquated. So much she did not understand . . . had never heard. . . . What, ind...