The Innocent Adventuress Part 7

"Don't let him hear you say so," she scoffed. "He's too fat. He needs a lot more tennis."

And then to Maria's horror she raised her voice and confided this conviction to the approaching young men.

"You're getting fat, Bob. I just got your profile--and you need a lot of tennis for that tummy!"

And young Martin laughed--the indolent, submissive laughter with which he appeared to accept all things at the hands of this audacious, brown-cheeked, gray-eyed young girl.

She must be very sure of him, thought the little Italian sagely. Then, not so sagely, she wondered if Ruth was exhibiting her power to warn off all newcomers. . . . Was _that_ why she refused to admit his wealth or his good looks--she wanted to invite no compet.i.tion?

Maria Angelina believed she saw the light.

She would rea.s.sure Ruth, she thought eagerly. She was a young person of honor. Never would she attempt to divert a glance from her cousin's admirer.

Meanwhile a debate was carried on between golf and tennis, and was carried in favor of golf by Cousin Jim. There was unintelligible talk of hazards and bunkers and handicaps for the tournament, of records and of bogey, and then as Johnny turned to her with a casual, "Like the game?"

a shadow of misgiving crept into her confidence.

She could not golf. Nor could she play tennis. Nor could she follow the golfers--as Johnny Byrd suggested--for Cousin Jane declared her frock and slippers too delicate. She must get into something more appropriate.

And in Maria Angelina the worried suspicion woke that she had nothing more appropriate.

A few minutes later Cousin Jane confirmed that suspicion as she paused by the trunk the young girl was hastily unpacking.

"I'll send to town for some plain little things for you to play in," she said cheerfully. "You must have some low-heeled white shoes and short white skirts and a batting hat. They won't come to much," she added as if carelessly, going down to her bridge game on the veranda.

But Maria Angelina's small hands clenched tightly at her sides in a panic out of all proportion to the idea.

More expense, she was thinking quiveringly. More investment!

Oh, she must not fail--she dared not fail. She must find some one--the right some one----

She dropped beside her trunk of pretty things in a pa.s.sion of frightened tears.

But the night swung her back to triumph again.

For although she could not golf, and her hands could not wield a tennis racket, Maria Angelina could play a guitar and she could sing to it like the angels she had been named for. And the young people at the Lodge had a way of gathering in the dark upon the wide steps and strumming chords and warbling strange strains about intimate emotions. And as Maria Angelina's voice rose with the rest her gift was discovered.

"Gosh, the little Wop's a Galli-Curci," was John Byrd's aside to Bob.

So presently with Johnny Byrd's guitar in her hands Maria Angelina was singing the songs of Italy, sometimes in English, when she knew the words, that all might join in the choruses, but more often in their own Italian.

A crescent moon edged over the shadowy dark of the mountains before her . . . the same moon whose silver thread of light slipped down those far Apennine hills of home and touched the dome of old Saint Peter's. She felt far away and lonely . . . and deliciously sad and subtly expectant.

"'O Sole mio----"

And as she sang, with her eyes on the far hills, her ears caught the whir of wheels on the road below, and all her nerves tightened like wires and hummed with the charged currents.

Out of the dark she conjured a tall young figure advancing . . . a figure topped by short-cut curly brown hair . . . a figure with eyes of incredible brightness. . . .

If he would only come now and find her like this, singing. . . .

It was so exquisite a hope that her heart pleaded for it.

But the wheels went on.

"But he will come," she thought swiftly, to cover the pang of that expiring hope. "He will come soon. He said so. And perhaps again it will be like this and he will find me here----"

"'O Sole mio----"

And only Johnny Byrd, staring steadily through the dusk, discerned that there were tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER IV

RI-RI SINGS AGAIN

She told herself that she was foolish to hope for him so soon. Of course he could not follow at once. He could not leave New York. He had work to be done. She must not begin to hope until the week-end at least.

But though she talked to herself so wisely, she hoped with every breath she drew. She was accustomed to Italian precipitancy--and nothing in Barry Elder suggested delay. If he came, he would come while his memory of her was fresh.

It would be either here or York Harbor. Either herself or that girl with the blue eyes. If he really wanted to see her at all, if he had any memory of their dance, any interest in the newness of her, then he would come soon.

And so through Maria Angelina's days ran a fever of expectancy.

At first it ran high. The honk of a motor horn, the reverberation of wheels upon the bridge, the slam of a door and the flurry of steps in the hall set up that instant, tumultuous commotion.

At any moment, she felt, Barry Elder might arrive. Every morning her pulses confessed that he might come that day; every night her courage insisted that the next morning would bring him.

And as the days pa.s.sed the expectancy increased. It grew acute. It grew painful. The feeling, at every arrival, that he might be there gave her a tight pinch of suspense, a hammering racket of pulse-beats--succeeded by an empty, sickening, sliding-down-to-nothingness sensation when she realized that he was not there, when her despair proclaimed that he would never be there--and then, stoutly, she told herself that he would come the next time.

They were days of dreams for her--dreams of the restaurant, of color, light and music, of that tall, slim figure . . . dreams of the dance, of the gay, half-teasing voice, the bright eyes, the direct smile. . . .

Every word he had uttered became precious, infinitely significant.

"_A rivederci_, Signorina. . . . Don't forget me."

She had not forgotten him. Like the wax he had named she had guarded his image. Through all the swiftly developing experiences of those strange days she retained that first vivid impression.

She saw him in every group. She pictured him in every excursion. Above Johnny Byrd's light, straight hair she saw those close-cropped brown curls. . . . She held long conversations with him. She confided her impressions. She read him Italian poems.

But still he did not come.

And sharply she went from hope to despair. She told herself that he would never come.

She did not believe herself. Beneath a set little pretense of indifference she listened intently for the sound of arrivals; her heart turned over at an approaching car.