The Innocent Adventuress Part 16

It was the last gust of humor in him. He was furious--and he grew more furious unrestrainedly. He exploded in muttered oaths and exclamations.

In her troubled little heart Maria Angelina felt for him. She knew that he was tired and hungry, and men, when they were hungry, were very unhappy. But she was tired and hungry, too--and her reputation, the reputation that was her very existence, was in jeopardy.

Up they scrambled, from the ledge again, and once back upon the mountain side, they circled farther back around the mountain before starting down again.

Blindly Maria Angelina followed Johnny's lead. She tripped over roots; she caught upon brambles. With her last shreds of vanity she was grateful that he could not see her streaming hair and scratched and dirty face.

It had grown darker and darker and the moon had vanished utterly behind the clouds. The air was damp and cold. A wind was rising.

Suddenly their feet struck into the faint line of a path. Eagerly they followed. It wound on back across the mountain side and rounded a wooded spur.

"It will lead somewhere, anyway," declared Johnny, hope returning good nature to his tone.

"But it is not the right way," Maria Angelina combated in distress.

"See, we are not going down any more. Oh, let us keep on going down until we find that river below, and then we can return to the Lodge----"

"You come on," said Johnny firmly, striding on ahead, and unhappily she followed, her anxiety warring with her weariness.

What time could it be? She felt as if it were the middle of the night.

The picnickers must all be home by now, looking for her, organizing searching parties perhaps. . . . What must they think? What must they not think?

She saw her Cousin Jane's distress. . . . Ruth's disgust. Would they imagine that she had eloped?

She knew but little of American conventions and that little told her that the ceremonies were easy of accomplishment. Young people were always eloping. . . . The consent of guardians was not necessary. . . .

How terrible, if they imagined her gone on a romantic elopement, to have her return, mud plastered, after a night with a young man upon the mountain!

A night upon the mountain with a young man . . . a young man in love with her.

Scandal. . . . Unbelievable shame.

She felt as if they were in the grip of a nightmare.

They must hurry, hurry. Somehow they must gain upon that night, they must return to the Lodge before it was too late.

A cold sprinkle of rain fell, plastering her middy shiveringly to her, but the rain soon stopped and the path grew clearer and more and more defined as they stumbled along it to its end.

It was not a house they found. It was not really a cabin. It was just three walls of logs built against the rocky face of the mountain.

But it was a hut, a shelter, with a door that swung open on leather hinges at Johnny's tug.

He called, then peered within. Finally he struck a match and stared about and Maria Angelina came to look, too. The place was so tiny that a bed of boughs and blankets on the floor covered most of the s.p.a.ce, save for a few boxes. Outside the doors were the ashes of old fires.

"Well, it's _something_," said Johnny in glum resignation. "Hasn't the fool that built it any food?"

Vigorously he poked about the tiny place, then emerged to report in disgust, "Not a darn thing. . . . Oh, well, it's a shelter, anyway."

The incredible idea pierced Maria Angelina that he was going to pause there for rest.

"Oh, we must go on," she insisted.

"Go on?" He turned to stare in indignation at the girl who had gasped that at him. "Go on? In this dark? When it's going to rain? Why, you're nearly all in, now."

"Indeed--indeed, I am not all in," she protested. "It is not necessary for me to rest--not necessary at all. I am quite strong. I want only to go on--to go to the Lodge----"

"We'll never make the Lodge to-night. We'll have to camp here the best way we can."

It seemed to her that she could hardly have heard him. It was so incredible a thought--so overwhelming----

A queer gulping sound came from her throat. Her words fell without her volition, like spent breaths.

"But that is wrong. We cannot stay. We cannot stay like that----"

"Why can't we stay?"

"It--it is impossible! The scandal----"

Angrily he wheeled about. "Scandal?" he said sharply. "What the h.e.l.l scandal is there?"

His indignation at the words could not dispel her terror. But it was something to have him so hot her champion.

"You know, they will all talk----"

"Let 'em talk," he said curtly. "We can't help it."

She put a hand to her throat as if to still that throbbing pulse there that impeded speech.

"I know we cannot help it. But we cannot--not give them so much to talk of. We can be trying to return----"

"Don't be a goose, Ri-Ri!" he broke in sharply.

He was a man. He did not understand the full agony. . . . Desperately Maria Angelina wondered as to her reception. She had no parallel in Italian society. The thing could not happen in Italian society. A girl, a well born girl, rambling the woods all night with her fiance!

She wondered if the announcement of their engagement instantly upon their return would appease the world. Of course, there would always be the story. As long as she lived there would be the story. But as Johnny's wife, triumphant, a.s.sured, she could afford to ignore it.

At her stillness Johnny had looked about, and something infinitely drooping and forlorn in the vague outlines of her small figure made its softening appeal.

His voice changed. "Don't you worry, little girl," he told her soothingly, "I'll take care of you."

Her heart leaped.

"Ah, yes," she said faintly, "but what can we do? Had it better be at once----?"

"At once----?"

"The marriage," she choked out.

"Marriage?" Even in the dimness she saw that he raised his head, his chin stiffening, his whole outline hardening.