CHAPTER XI
MORNING LIGHT
Maria Angelina had no difficulty at all in recollecting where she waswhen she came to herself next morning, for her dreams had been growingsharper and sharper with reality. In those dreams she was foreverclimbing down mountain sides, tripping, stumbling, down, down, foreverdown, until at last there surged through her the warmth of that cabinfire and the memory of Barry Elder's care.
She opened her eyes. The warmth of the dream fire was a blaze ofsunlight that fell across it. The fire itself a charred mass of embersupon a mound of gray ashes. Upon the hearth stood the disreputableremnants of her sodden shoes.
For a few moments she lay still, her consciousness invaded with itsrush of memories. She felt very direfully stiff when she thought aboutit, but after the first moment she did not think about it.
She sat up and looked eagerly about.
There were no shadows now; the sunlight was streaming in through thecabin's three windows and through the door that stood open into a worldof forest green. She heard birds singing and the sound of running water.Barry Elder was nowhere to be seen.
The cabin was one room, an amazing room, its unconcealed simplicitiesblazoning themselves cheerfully in the light. There were rustic tablesand comfortable chairs; there was a couch untouched, apparently, savethat it had been denuded of the cushions that lay now about her. Therewas a small black stove and pans on it and dishes on a stand. There wasa chest of drawers and along the walls were low open shelves of books,the shelves topped with a miscellany of pipes and pictures and playingcards.
Between two windows stood a large table buried in books and papers witha typewriter poking its head above the confusion.
So he really was writing a play--another play. She hoped, rememberingCousin Jim's remark, that he would not put too much Harvard in.
She got to her feet--with wincing reluctance for every muscle in hersmall person made its lameness felt, and she limped when she began towalk. The rejected pile of clothing had disappeared from her side, butthe fringed moccasins were left, and very humbly she drew them on. Herstockings were not those in which a Santonini desires to be discovered!
Uncertainly she moved towards the door, her stiffly dried white skirtrattling at each move. It was a battleground of a skirt where black mudand green grass stains struggled for preeminence, and her poor middyblouse, she thought, was in little better plight.
She had a sudden, half hysterical thought of Lucia's face, if Luciacould see her now, and a queer little gulp of laughter caught in thelump in her throat!
"Morning, Signorina! A merry morning to you."
Up the grassy bank before the cabin Barry Elder came swinging towardsher, a lithe figure in brown knickers and white shirt rolling looselyopen at the throat. His face was flushed and his brown, close-croppedcurls were wet as if he had been ducking them into the cold river water.
He waved one hand gayly; the other was carrying a pail of water.
"You look so _clean_!" gave back Maria Angelina impetuously, herlaughter rising to meet his, but her sensitive blood coloring her facebefore his gaze.
"There's the entire river to wash in. I thought you'd like it better outof doors so I've built you a dressing room. . . . Meanwhile thecommissary will be working. Don't be too long, for breakfast will beready," he told her, passing by her into the house, with a gesture ofdirection as if it were the most matter of fact thing in the world foryoung men to cook breakfast and for young ladies to wash in rivers.
So Maria Angelina followed his directions and went down into the groveof young birches that he called her dressing-room.
Here greenness was all about her, and through the delicate, interlacingboughs before her even the river was shut out, except one eddying streamof it that swerved in beneath her feet. There was lovely freshness inthe morning air, a lovely brightness in the sky above her. It was adressing-room for a nymph of the woods, for a dryad, for Diana herself.
Gratefully she stooped to the cold water at her feet. There on the bank,upon a spread towel, she discovered soap and fresh towels, a comb and apair of military brushes, still wet from recent washing. He was verysweet and thoughtful, that Barry Elder.
Valiantly she attacked that tangled hair of hers, reducing it to theold submissive braids which she coroneted about her head, fastening themwith twigs as best she could, and then she washed deliciously in thatcold, running stream. It must be wonderful, she felt, to be a man and tolive like this. One could forget the world in such a place. . . .
Sandy dashed upon her, scattering the gathering darkness of herthoughts, and she yielded to the young impulse to splash and romp withhim before returning with him to the cabin.
She felt shy about reentering that house . . . and Barry Elder'spresence.
A rich aroma of coffee greeted her upon the threshold. So did her host'svoice in mock severity.
"I sent Sandy to bring you in--and I was just coming after the two ofyou. . . . Will you sit here? I did have a dressy thought of setting upa table out of doors but this is handier--nearer the stove, you know.You've no idea of the convenience of it."
"But you are getting me so _many_ meals," protested Maria Angelina,confronted by a small table which he had spread for two before thefireplace. Within the hearth he had kindled a small and cheerful blaze.
"I'll agree to keep it up as long as you eat them."
Swiftly Barry turned the browning ham from the iron spider into a smallplatter and deposited it upon the table with a flourish. Then he placedthe granite coffeepot at her right hand.
"I made it with an egg," he said proudly. "Will you pour, Signorina,while I cut this? That's genuine canned cream--none of your execrableContinental hot milk for me! And I like my cream first with three lumpsof sugar, please."
He smiled blithely upon her as with a deep and delicious constraint hersmall hands moved, housewifely, among his cups.
"These aren't French rolls," he murmured, "but I promise you that theyare cold enough for a true Italian breakfast, and there is honey andthere is jam--and here, Signorina, is ham, milk-fed, smoke-cured, andbrowned to make the best chef of Sherry's pale with envy and despair.. . . I thank you," and he accepted the cup of coffee from her hand withanother direct smile that deepened the confusion of the girl's spirit.
A dream had succeeded the nightmare, a fairy tale of a dream. It wasunreal . . . it was a bubble that would break . . . but it was a spell,an enchantment.
She forgot that she was tired and bruised; she forgot her stainedclothes; she forgot her outrageous past and her terrifying future.
Oblivious and bewitched, she smiled across the table into Barry Elder'seyes and poured his coffee and ate his bread and jam. The amazing youthin her forgot for those moments all that it had suffered and all that itmust meet. She was floating, floating in the web of this beautifulunreality.
And Barry Elder himself appeared a very different person from thatbitter young man who had stared desperately into the fire and talkedabout cake and disillusionment. In spite of his lack of sleep there wasnothing in the least haggard about his young face; he looked remarkablyalert and interested in life, and his eyes were very gentle and hissmile very sweet.
Perhaps there was something of a dream to him in the presence of afairylike young creature who had blown in with the storm and slept uponhis sheltering hearth. Perhaps there was an enchantment to him in theexquisite young face across the table, the shy, soft eyes, the delicatepale contours.
Into their absorption came a shattering knock upon the door. Instantlythe nightmare was upon Maria Angelina. She was tense, her eyes wide, herlips parted. And as the knock was repeated, one hand, wide-fingered infright, was raised as if to ward off some palpable blow.
"Oh, let me hide," she breathed across the table into Barry Elder'sears.
Fortunately the latch was on the door.
"Who's there?" said Barry Elder raising his voice to cover herreiterated whisper. In negation he gestured her to silence.
"Hello, h
ello there, I say!"
It was the voice of Johnny Byrd and Maria Angelina half rose from herchair and clutched Barry Elder's arm as he moved towards the summons.
"Do not let him in," she gasped. "That is the man--last night----"
The dog's barking was drowning her words. Johnny called again.
"Anybody in? Here you wake up--anybody here?"
Barry Elder had stood still at her words. His expression changed. Heturned and pointed to a blanket from the floor flung over a chair.
She slipped behind it.
Calling to his dog to behave and keep still, Barry stepped over to thedoor and opened it.
"Oh, Barry Elder! Gee, I thought this was your place but I didn't knowyou were here," Johnny Byrd declared in relief. "I saw the smoke andknew there was somebody about. . . . Gee, have you got any food?"
Slowly Barry surveyed him.
Johnny Byrd was not punctiliously turned out; he was streaked andmuddied; his blue eyes were rimmed with red as if his night's rest hadnot been wholly soothing; he had no cap and his hair had clearly beencombed back by fingers into its restless roach.
Barry's eyes appreciated each detail. "Hello, Johnny," he remarkedwithout affability. "How did you happen to toddle over for breakfast?"
Johnny was not critical of tones. "Oh, never mind the damned details,"he said bitterly. "Gawd, I could eat a raw cow. . . . Say, you haven'tseen any one pass here lately, have you? I mean has any one been by atall?"
"I haven't seen any one pass here at all," said Barry Elder.
"Sure? But have you been looking out? Say, what other way is there--Oh,my Lord, is that coffee? Or do I only dream I smell it? I haven't had abite since the middle of yesterday. Let me get to it."
But Barry Elder did not spring to the duties of his hostship. He did noteven move aside to permit Johnny Byrd to spring to his ownassistance--which Johnny showed every symptom of doing. He continued tostand obstructingly in the middle of his log doorstep, one hand on theknob of the half closed door behind him, his eyes fixed very curiouslyon Johnny's flushed disorder.
"What kind of an 'any one' are you looking for?" said Barry slowly.
"Oh--a--well, I guess you've got to help me out on this. You know thecountry. There's no use stalling. It's a girl--a foreign-looking girl."
"And what are you doing at six in the morning looking for aforeign-looking girl?"
"It's the darndest luck," Johnny broke out explosively. "We--we got lostlast night going to a picnic on Old Baldy--and then we gotseparated----"
"How?"
"How?" Johnny stared back at Barry Elder and found something oddly fixedand challenging in that young man's eyes.
"Why how--how does any one get separated?" he threw back querulously.
"I can't imagine--especially when one is responsible for a girl."
"Gosh, Barry, you're talking like a grandmother. Aren't you going togive me anything to eat? What's the matter with you, anyway? You actdevilish queer----"
Again he confronted the coldness of Barry's gaze and his own facechanged suddenly, with swift surmise.
"Say, has she been here?" he broke out. "You've seen her, haven't you? Iwas sure I saw tracks. . . . Has she--has she told you anything?"
Barry leaned a little nearer the door-frame, drawing the door closerbehind him. Through the crack Sandy's pointed noise and exploring eyeswere fixed inquiringly upon the visitor and he whined eagerly as,scenting disapprobation in the air, he yearned to meet this troublehalfway.
"I think you had better," Barry told him.
"Better? Better what?"
"Better tell me--everything."
"Oh, all right, all right! _I've_ nothing to conceal. I didn't go off mychump and behave like a darn lunatic in grand opera!"
Then very quickly Johnny veered from anger into confidence.
"Here's the whole story--and there's nothing to it. She's crazy--crazywith her foreign notions, I tell you. At first I thought she was tryingto put something over on me, but I guess she's just genuinely crazy.It's the way she was brought up. They go mad over there and bite ifyou're left alone in a room with a girl."
Definitely Barry waited.
"We were up there on the mountain," said Johnny more lucidly. "We'dlost the others--no fault of ours, Barry--you needn't look like a moviecensor--and we found we'd got to make a night of it. We were just wornout and going in circles. And she--I give you my word I didn't do onegosh-darned thing, but that girl just naturally took on and raved aboutwanting me to marry her and blew me up when I said I hadn't asked herand then--then--when I tried to get shelter in a little old shack we'dstumbled on she just up and bolted. She----"
His words died away. His eyes dropped before the blaze that met them.
Very slowly Barry formulated his feelings.
"You--infernal----"
"Hold on there, I'm not any such thing."
Through the bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence madeits outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a--a grandmother."Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You'regetting this dead wrong, Barry. . . . Look here, what do you take mefor?"
"That's a large question," said Barry slowly. But his tone was milderthough far from reassuring. "But do you tell me that she asked you tomarry her?"
"I do. She did. Just like that--out of a clear sky."
"But what was the reason----"
"There wasn't a reason, I give you my word, Barry."
"You hadn't been saying anything to her--to suggest it?"
Johnny Byrd's face changed unhappily. His sunburned warmth deepened to abrick red.
"Why, no--not about marrying. Oh, hang it all, Barry, don't act as ifyou never kissed a pretty girl! Oh, she pretended she thought _that_ wasproposing to her--just as if a few friendly words and a half kiss meantanything like that. . . . I'll own I was gone on her," Johnny foundhimself suddenly announcing, "but when she was taking marriage forgranted right off it sounded too much like a hold-up and I flared allover."
"A hold-up?"
"Oh, thumb screws, you know--the same old quick-step to the altar. Ihadn't done a thing, I tell you, but it looked as if she thought thatour being there was something she could stage a scene on and so Ithought--you don't know what things have been tried on me before," hebroke off to protest at Barry's expression.
Mutteringly he offered, "You other fellows may think you know a littlebit about side-stepping girls but when it comes to any kind of a bankroll--they're like starving Armenians at sight of food. I'd had 'em tryall sorts of things. . . . But I own, now, she was just going accordingto her foreign ways. She must have been half scared to death. Andshe--she is pretty crazy about me----"
"I am not pretty crazy about you, Johnny Byrd!"
The door behind Barry was wrenched from his holding and flung violentlyopen and Maria Angelina appeared upon the threshold, a defiant littleimage of war. Deadly pale, except for that scarlet stain across hercheek, her eyes blazing, there was something so mortally honest in theindignant anger that possessed her that Johnny Byrd unconsciously fellback a step, and Barry Elder stood aside, his own gaze lit with concernand wonder.
"I am despising you for a coward and a flirter," said Maria Angelina ina low but exceedingly penetrative voice, and so intense was her commandof the situation that neither man found humor, then, in the misusedword.
"You make love to girls when you mean nothing by it--you get them lostin the woods and then refuse the marriage that any gentleman, even anindifferent gentleman, would offer! And then you behave like a savage.You bully and try to force your way into the actual room of shelter withme!"
"You see!" Johnny waved his hand helplessly at her and lookedappealingly at Barry for a gleam of masculine right-mindedness."She--she wanted me to stay out in the rain, Barry."
"But as it was, _she_ stayed out in the rain and you slept in theshelter."
"She ran, I'm telling you. I couldn't chase her forever, could I? Itried to track her as soon as it
got a little light and I could seewhere she'd been sliding and slipping along, and honestly, I've beennearly bats with worry till I got a trace of her again back in thewoods."
Barry Elder turned towards the girl.
"And that's the whole story, Signorina? That's all there is to it?"
"All?" Maria Angelina echoed bewilderedly. She thought there was enoughand to spare. It seemed to her that she had related the destruction ofher lifetime.
She stopped. She would not cry again before Johnny Byrd. She called onall her pride to keep her firm before him.
A queer change came over Barry Elder's expression. The light that seemedto be shining in the back of his eyes was bright again. He looked atMaria Angelina in a thoughtful silence, then he turned to Johnny Byrd.
"I don't think you know how serious a business this is in Italy," hetold him. "You know, there where a girl cannot even see a man alone----"
"Well, we don't need to cable it to Italy, do we?" Johnny demanded indisgust. "It isn't going to spill any beans here. But it would lookfine, wouldn't it, if I came back to the Lodge yelling to marry her?"
"Right you are. That is it, Signorina," Barry Elder agreed verypromptly. "That's the way it would look in America. Being lost is anunpleasant accident. Nothing more--between young people of good family.Not that young people of good families make a practice of being lost,"he supplemented, his eyes dancing in spite of himself at MariaAngelina's deepening amaze, "but when anything like that happens--as ithas before this in the Adirondacks--people don't start an ugly scandal.They may talk a little of course, but it won't do you any real harm.. . . And it wouldn't be quite nice for Johnny to go rushing aboutoffering you marriage. The occasion doesn't demand it in the least."
Helplessly she regarded him. . . . She felt utterly astray--astray andblundering. . . .
"Would Cousin Jane think so?" she appealed.
"She would," averred Barry stoutly, over the twinge of an inner qualm."And so would your own mother, if she were here."
But there Maria Angelina was on solid ground.
"You know little about _that_," she told him with spirit. "If I werelost in Italy----"
But it was so impossible, being lost in Italy, that Maria Angelina couldonly break off and guard a bewildered silence.
"Then I expect your mother had better not know," was all the counselthat Barry Elder could offer, realizing doubtfully that it was far froma counsel of perfection. "You had better let that depend upon Mrs.Blair."
"I tried to tell her all this," Johnny broke in with an accent oftriumph.
But Maria Angelina was looking only at Barry Elder.
"Can you tell me that it is nothing?" she said pitifully, her eyes bigand black in her white face. "To have been gone all night with thatyoung man--to have been found by you--another young man? Even if theAmericans make light of it--is it not what you call an escapade?"
"I have to admit that it's an escapade--an accidental escapade," Barryqualified carefully. "But I don't know any way out of it--unless we allstand together," he said slowly, "and all pretend that you got lostalone and found alone. That's very simple, really, and I think perhapsit would make things easier for you."
"Now you're saying something!" Johnny was jubilant. "Absoluteintelligence--gleam of positive genius. . . . She was lost alone. Rightafter the thunder shower. Missed the others and I went to a high placeto look for them and we never found each other. . . . Spent the nightsearching for her," Johnny threw in carelessly, marking out a neatlittle role for himself. "That's the story--eh, what?"
"Oh could we--could we do that?" Maria Angelina implored with quiveringlips.
"Of course we can do that. Only you've got to stick to that story likegrim death--no making any little break about climbing the mountain topand things like that, you know."
"You may trust me," said Maria fervently.
"Leave it to your Uncle Dudley," Johnny reassured him. "But, look here,Barry, do you want me to die on your doorstep?" he demanded, his hungerreturning as his agitation subsided.
"Oh, sit down, Johnny, and I'll bring you something," said Barry atlast. "You had better keep your eye on the trail to see if any one elseis coming along. Two in a morning is quite stirring," he saiddeliberately. "I'm sure the fire is still burning--unless you'd preferto have him perish of starvation?" he paused to inquire politely of thegirl, his twinkling eyes bringing a sudden irrepressible answer to herlips.
"Yes, that will be best for everybody's feelings," he rattled on, fromthe interior of the cabin, referring not to Johnny's demise but to theconstruction of a defensive narrative. "Each of you wandered about allnight alone. . . . Here's some ham, Johnny, and cold toast. There'll behot coffee in an instant. . . . Now remember you crossed the river justafter the thunder storm and separated to try different trails. And younever found each other . . . That's simple, isn't it? And you, Johnny,climbed the wrong mountain and slept in a shack and came down thismorning and returned to the Lodge. You must show up there, worried asblazes and tearing your hair," he instructed the devouring Johnny whomerely nodded, tearing wolfishly at the cold toast.
"But before you reach the Lodge I will ease the anxiety there bytelephoning that I have just found Maria Angelina," went on Barry, usingquite unconsciously the name by which he was thinking of the girl.
He turned to her, "With your permission, I shall say that I have justfound you, that I have given you something to eat and while you wereresting I went to telephone. Does that make you any happier?"
Her answering look was radiant.
"Now, remember--don't change a word of this. . . . Here's your coffee,Johnny. When you reach the Lodge, don't forget that you haven't seen meand that you are still unfed----"
"Unfed is right," said Johnny ungratefully. "Oh, my gosh, I am stiff asa poker. What do you say, Barry, to our doping this out around thatfire--or have you got some other little thing in there you are keepingincog as it were?"
Refreshed and unabashed he grinned at them.
But Barry did not offer his fire.
"You'd better cut on before you are discovered," he advised. "It's along way to go--like Tipperary. And I'll hurry off to Peter's place.. . . You strike over that shoulder there and down the trail to theright and you'll find the main road. It's shorter than the river.Besides you can't use the river trail or you would have found me. . . .Now mind--don't change a word of it."
"Sure, I've got it down. Well, I'll be off then!"
But Johnny was not off. He hesitated a moment, turning very obviously toMaria Angelina, who stood silent upon the doorstep, and it was Barry whotook himself suddenly off around the corner of the cabin, with a plateof scraps for the vociferous Sandy.
Embarrassedly Johnny muttered, "I say, Ri-Ri, I'm sorry."
Her expression did not change. She said levelly, "I'm sorry, too. I didnot understand."
"I didn't understand, either."
Both stood silent. Then he spoke in a hurried, even a flurried way in avery low tone indeed.
"But I--I didn't mean to be a quitter. Look here, I didn't realize thatit was just the look of things you were after and not my--my----"
"Your money, Signor?" said Ri-Ri clearly.
He grew red. "I've got some queer experiences," he jerked out.
"I should think, Signor, that you would."
"Oh, hang that Signor! I don't blame you for being a frost, Ri-Ri, for Iguess I was pretty rotten to you--but I wasn't throwing youdown--honestly. I was just mulish, I guess, because you were trying tostampede me. And I was fighting mad over the entire business and had totake it out on somebody. If you'd just laughed and petted a fellow alittle----"
He broke off and looked at her hopefully.
Maria Angelina gave no signs of warmth. Her eyes were enigmatic as blackdiamonds; and her mouth was a red bud of scorn. Her dignity was immensefor all that her braids had come down from their coronet and werehanging childishly about her shoulders; the loose strands flutteringabout her face.
Johnny wanted
to put his hands out and touch them. And he wanted to gripthe small shoulders beneath that middy blouse and shake them out of thataloof perverseness . . . they had been such soft, nestling shoulderslast night. . . .
"You know I--I'm really crazy about you," he said quickly. "Of courseyou know it--you had a right to know it. I was gone on you from themoment I first saw you. You were so--different. I thought it was just acrush--that I could take it or leave it, you know--but you _are_different. A man's just _got_ to have you----"
He waited. He had an idea that he had elucidated something. He felt thathe had raised an issue. But Maria Angelina stood like the bright eternalsnow, unhearing and unheeding and most devilishly cold.
"Only last night," said Johnny, explaining feverishly again, "you wereso funny and grand opera and all and I was mad and disgusted and grouchyand I--I didn't know how much I cared myself. Look here, forget it, willyou, and begin again?"
"Begin what again?"
"Well, don't begin, then. Let's finish. Let's get married. I do wantyou, Ri-Ri--I want you like the very deuce. After you had gone--Gee, itwas an awful night when I got over my mad. And coming down the mountainthis morning--I didn't know _what_ I was going to find! . . . So let'sforget it all--and get married," he repeated.
There was a pause. "Do you mean this?" said a still voice.
"Every word. That's what I was planning to tell you when I was runningdown the mountain this morning. . . . And last night--if you'd gone atme differently."
He looked at her. Something in that young figure made him say quickly,"Will you, Ri-Ri?"
"I should like you," said Maria Angelina in a clear implacable littlevoice, "to say that again, Signor Byrd, if you are in earnest."
"Oh, all right. Come on back, Barry. . . . I'm asking Ri-Ri to marryme--and we'll announce the engagement any time she says. . . . There.. . . Now I've got that off my chest."
"Thank you," said Maria Angelina. She looked neither at the embarrassedJohnny nor the astounded Barry. "I will think about it and I will letyou know, Signor Byrd. Now please go."
"Well, of all the----" said Johnny blankly.
Then he looked at her. She was staring before her at something that shealone could see. Her look was rather extraordinary. It occurred toJohnny that after all she had a right to tantalize--and this was reallyno moment for capitulation.
To-night, now, after dinner, when every one was fed and warm and comfy.. . .
Still she might give a fellow a decent look. Hang it, he wasn't adrygoods clerk offering himself!
"Come on, let her alone now," cut in Barry with a certain savage energythat woke wonder in Johnny before it had time to wake resentment.
"We must be off," Barry went on. "Come on, the first part of our waylies together and we'd better hurry or some searching party will findus. Remember, you've only been here an hour," he called back to MariaAngelina. He did not look at her, but added, in that same offhand way,"Better go in and get some sleep and I'll telephone the Lodge fromPeter's and have a motor and a horse sent after you."
"I'll come with the motor all right," Johnny promised.
"Don't worry," called back Barry, and waved his hand with an air ofgayety but there was no laughter on his face as he started off over thehill with Johnny Byrd.
CHAPTER XII
JOURNEY'S END
Over the hills went Johnny Byrd and down the trail and into a grove ofpines.
Up to the left went Barry Elder, out of sight among the larches. Hewalked briskly at first, his face clouded but set. Then he walkedslower, his face still clouded but unsettled.
Decidedly his pace lagged. Then it stopped. He looked back. . . . Hewent a little way back and stopped again. . . . Then he went on goingback without stopping.
His face was much clearer now.
Maria Angelina had climbed a mountain and descended a mountain; she hadwandered and struggled and scrambled for hours till she was faint withexhaustion; she had been through the extremes of hope and despair andshame and anger and heart-breaking indignation till it seemed as if herspirit must break with her body.
For recovery she had had some scant hours of sleep and a portion offood.
And now, instead of succumbing to the mortal weariness that should havebeen upon her, instead of closing the big eyes that burned in her head,she stood at the cabin door with uplifted face listening to the song ofa bird that she did not know.
Then she reentered the cabin; but not to sink into a chair, not torelease her bruised feet from the weight of her tiredness.
She cleared the table and piled the dishes in a huge pan upon the littlestove. Upon the stove she discovered water heated in a kettle and shepoured it, splashing, over the panful. She found three cloths ofincredible blackness drying upon a little string in a corner by thestove, and after smiling very tenderly upon them she abandoned them infavor of a clean hand towel.
She restored the washed dishes to their obvious places upon the shelvesand with a broom she battled with the dust upon the floor and drove itout the open door. Then she swept up the hearth, singing as she swept,and tidied the arrangement of books, bait and tobacco upon the mantel,fingering them with shy curiosity.
"Maria Angelina!" said a voice at the doorway and Maria Angelina turnedwith a catch at her heart.
It had taken Barry Elder a long time to retrace those steps of his.
Twice he had stopped in deep thought. Once he had pulled out aleather folder from his pocket and after regarding its sheaf ofpapers had sat down upon a stone and deliberately opened a long,much-creased-from-handling letter. It was dated a week before and it washeaded York Harbor. It concluded with an invitation--and a question.
After reading that letter Barry remained sunk in thought for a timelonger than the reading had taken.
All of his past was in that letter--and a great deal of his future inthat invitation.
Then he went deeper into his pocketbook and took out a small photograph.It was the one she had given him when he went to France--when she hadbeen willing to inspire but not to bless him. For a long time, soberly,he gazed at the picture it disclosed, at the fair presentment ofdelightful youth.
Never had he looked at that picture in just that way. He had knownlonging before it, and he had known bitterness quite as misplaced andquite as disproportionate.
It affected him now in neither way.
It was a beautiful picture--it was the picture of a beautiful youngwoman. He acknowledged the beauty with generous appreciation. But hefelt no inclination to go on staring, moonstruck, upon it; neither didhe feel the impulse to thrust it hurriedly out of sight, as somethingwith power to rend.
It neither troubled him nor invited--though the girl was beautifulenough, he continued to admit. So were her pearls--and neither weregenuine, thought Barry with more humor than a former adorer has anyright to feel.
Then he amended his thought. Something of her was real--the invitationin that letter--the inclination that he had always known she felt. Itwas just because it was a genuine impulse in her that he realized howstrong was the calculation in her that had always been able to keep theerrant inclination in check.
And even when he was going to war . . . She had envisaged her future soshrewdly--either as wife or widow, he was certain, that she had giventhe photograph and not her hand.
Later, Bob Martin became unavailable. And he, himself, acquired anincome.
It was not the income that tempted her, he was clearly aware, and he didher and himself the justice to perceive that it was the inclinationwhich prompted the invitation--but the inclination could now feel itselfsupported by an approving worldly conscience.
He wondered now at the long struggle of his senses. He wondered at thedeath pangs of infatuation.
Once more he looked at the picture in a puzzled way as if to make surethat the thing he felt--and the thing he didn't feel--were indubitablyreal, and then he rose with a curious sense of lightness and yetsobriety, and, straightening his shoulders as if a burden had fallenfrom them,
he retraced his steps towards the cabin.
At the doorway he paused, for he heard Maria Angelina singing. Then hespoke her name.
The song stopped. Maria Angelina turned towards him a face of flushedsurprise. He discovered her quaintly with a jar of pickled frogs in herhand.
"Maria Angelina, what are you doing?"
"But these, Signor--what are these?"
"These? Oh--not for food, Maria Angelina--even in my most desperatemoments. . . . Maria Angelina, are you going to marry him?"
She did not drop the frogs. Very carefully she put them back but with ashaking hand. All the rosy sparkle was swept out of her. Her eyes wereaverted. She looked suddenly harassed, stubborn, almost furtive.
No quick denial came springing from her.
"I do not know," she told him painfully.
"You do not know?"
There was something in the young man's voice that made her glance riseto his.
"Oh, it is not that I care for him!" said Maria Angelina ingenuously.
"Then why think of marrying him?"
"It may be--needful."
"Not after this story," Barry Elder, insisted.
"It is not that--now." She forced herself to meet his combative look."It is because of--Julietta."
"Julietta! . . . Who the deuce is Julietta?"
"Oh, she is my sister, my older sister. I told you about her lastnight," Maria Angelina reminded him. "She is the one I love so much.. . . And she is not pretty, at all--she is anything _but_ pretty,though she is so good and dear--yet she will never marry unless she hasa large dower. And there is nothing in her life if she does not marry.And there is no money for a large dower, but only for a little bit forher and a little bit for me. So they sent me on this visit to America,for here the men do not ask dowers and what was saved on me would helpJulietta--and now----"
Borne headlong on her flood of revelation Maria Angelina could not stopto watch the change in Barry Elder's face. And she was utterlyunprepared for the immense vehemence of the exclamation which cut intoher consciousness with such startling effect that she stopped and gaspedand swallowed uncertainly before finishing in an altered key, "And so Imust marry in America--for Julietta's dower----"
In an odd voice Barry offered, "You think it your duty--because Byrd isso rich----?"
"I know it is my duty," she gave back, goaded to desperation, "but--but,oh, it is like that cake of yours, Signor--of a nothingness to mewithin!"
Very abruptly Barry turned from her; he drove his hands deep into hispocket and strode across the room and back. He brought up directly infront of her.
"Maria Angelina," he said softly, "how old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"How many men have you known?"
"You, first, Signor, then the others here."
"But you did care for him," he said. "You kissed him."
Her eyes dropped, her cheeks flamed and he saw her lips quiver--thosesoft, sensitive lips of hers which seemed to breathe such tender warmthand perfume like the warmth and perfume of a flower. But through theshine of tears her eyes came back to his.
"No, Signor, it was he who kissed me--and without my consent! I did notkiss him--never, never, never!"
"Is there such a difference?"
"But there is all the difference----"
"Maria Angelina, you are sure that to kiss a man yourself, to kiss himdeliberately, unmistakably upon the lips, is a final seal and ultimatesurrender, and that if you do not marry a man you have so kissed youwould be no better than a worthless deceiver, an outrageous flirt, anabandoned trifler----"
She looked at him amazedly.
His eyes were oddly dancing, his lips were curved in a boyish smile,infinitely merry, infinitely tender; the wind was blowing back the curlylocks of hair from his face, giving it the look of a victorious runner,arrived at some swift goal.
Back of him, through the open door of the cabin, the green and gold ofthe forest shone in translucent brightness.
"But yes--that is true----" she stammered, not daring to trust that rushof happiness, that sweet and secret singing of her blood.
"Then, Maria Angelina," said he gayly yet adoringly, "Maria Angelina,you little darling of the gods, come here instantly and kiss me. . . .For I am never going to let you go again."
THE END
[Transcriber's Note: A missing period was added on page 150, after thewords "then shrank back", and a missing quotation mark was added on page195, at the paragraph beginning "And Francisco". No other correctionswere made to the original text.]
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