The Innocent Adventuress

  CHAPTER VIII

  JOHNNY BECOMES EXPLICIT

  "I never asked you to marry me," he repeated very stiffly.

  The crash of all her worlds sounded in Maria Angelina's ears. An aghastbewilderment flooded her soul.

  Pitiably she stammered, "Why it--it was understood, was it not? Youcared--you--you----"

  She could not put into words the memories that beset her strickenconsciousness. But the cheeks that had felt his kiss flamed with asudden burning scarlet.

  "What was understood?" said Johnny Byrd. "That I was going to marryyou--because I kissed you?" And with that dreadful hostile grimness heinsisted, "You knew darned well I wasn't proposing to you."

  What did he mean? Had not every action of his been an affirmation oftheir relation? Did he believe she was one to whom men acted lightly?Had he never meant to propose to her, never meant to marry?

  Last night at the dance--this afternoon in the woods--what had he meantby all his admiration and his boldness?

  And that evening on the mountain, when, with his arm around her, he hadmurmured that he would take care of her. . . . Had he meant nothing byit, nothing, except the casual insolent intimacy which a man would granta _ballerina_?

  Or was he now turning from her in dreadful abandonment because afterthis scandal she would be too conspicuous to make it agreeable to carryout the intentions--perhaps only the vaguely realized intentions--of thepast?

  But why then, why had he kissed her on the mountain?

  Utter terror beset her. Her voice shook so that the words droppedalmost incoherently from the quivering lips.

  "But if not--if not--Oh, you must know that now--now it is imperative!"

  Shameful beseeching--shameful that she should have to beseech. Where washis manhood, his chivalry--where his compassion?

  "Imperative _nuts_! You don't mean to say you're trying to make me marryyou because we got lost in the woods?"

  Desperately the girl struggled for dignity.

  "It is the least you could do, Signor. Even if--if you had notcared----"

  Her voice broke again.

  "You little nut." Johnny's tones had altered. More mildly he went on, "Idon't quite get you, Ri-Ri, and I don't think you get me. It isn't up tome to do any marrying, if that's honestly what's worrying you. And I'mnot going to be stampeded, if that's what you're trying to do. . . . Ourreputations will have to stand it."

  And this, Maria Angelina despairingly recalled, was the man who hadkissed her, had watched the moon rise with his arm about her, promisingher his protection. . . . Wildly she wished that she had died before shehad come to this--a thing lightly regarded and repudiated.

  It was horrible to plead to him but the panic of her plight drove heron.

  "Reputations!" she said chokingly. "Yours can stand it, perhaps--butwhat of me? You cannot be serious, you cannot! Why, it is my name, mylife, my everything! . . . You made me come this way. Always I wantedyou to go another way, but no, you were sure, you told me to trust toyou. And then you pretended to care for me--do you think I would havetolerated your arm about me for one instant if I had not believed it wasforever? Oh, if my father were here you would talk differently! Have youno honor? None? . . . Every one knew there was an--an affair of theheart growing between us, and then for us two to disappear--this nightalone----"

  Her voice kept breaking off. She could not control it or the tears thatran down her face in the darkness. She was a choking, crying wild thing.

  Desperately she forced one last insistence, "Oh, you must, you must!"

  "Must nothing," Byrd answered her savagely. "What kind of scheme isthis, anyhow? I've had a few things tried before but this beats theDutch. I don't know how much of this talk you mean but I'll tell youright now, young lady, nobody can tie me up for life with any suchstuff. Father! Honor! Scandal! Believe me, little one, you've got thewrong number."

  "You mean--you dare refuse?"

  "You bet I dare refuse. There's no sense to all this. Nobody's going tothink the worse of you because you got lost with me--and if you'retrying to put anything over, you might as well stop now."

  Maria Angelina stopped. It seemed to her that she should die of shame.

  Dazedly she stood and looked at him through the darkness out of which afew drops of rain were again falling.

  "You just forget it and get a bit of rest," Johnny Byrd advisedbrusquely. "Hurry in out of the wet. That thing's going to leak again,"and he nodded jerkily up at the sky.

  He tugged open the door, and stricken as a wounded creature crawling toshelter Maria Angelina bent her head and stumbled across the threshold.

  "In you go," he said with a more cheerful air. "Wrap yourself up as warmas you can and I'll follow----"

  She was within the doorway when these words came. She turned and sawthat he was stooping to enter.

  "I shall do quite well, Signor," she found her voice quickly to say."You need not come in."

  "Need not----?" He appeared caught with fresh amazement. "Judas, wheredo you think I'm going to stay? Out in the rain?"

  "Certainly not in here, Signor."

  Desperation lent Maria Angelina sudden fire. "You must be mad, Signor!"she told him fiercely.

  "And you madder. You don't think I'm going to stay"--he jerked his headbackward--"out in the wet?"

  "But naturally. You are a man. It is your place."

  "My place--you little Wop! A man! I'd be a dead one." The words of ahumorous lecturer smote his memory and with harsh merriment he quoted,"'Good-night, Miss Middleton, said I, as I buttoned her carefully intoher tent and went out to sleep upon a cactus.' . . . None of that stufffor mine," and without more ado Johnny Byrd lowered his head to passunder the doorway.

  There was a gasp from the interior.

  "Ri-Ri, listen to me!" he demanded upon the threshold. "You'reraving--loco--nuts! There's no harm in my huddling under the same roofwith you--it's a damn necessity. I'm not going to hold hands and I'mnot going to kiss you. If you've got any drawn swords you can lay theirblades between us. You turn your face to the wall and forget all aboutit and I'll do the same."

  "Signor, stay without!"

  "Got a dagger in your garter? . . . Ri-Ri, listen to me. You'reabsolutely wrong in the head. Be sensible. Have a heart. I'm going toget some rest."

  "It does not matter what you say or what you intend. You do not need toreassure me that you will not kiss me, Signor. That will not happenagain." Maria Angelina's voice was like ice. "But you are not comingwithin this place."

  Tensely she confronted him. He loomed before her as a wolfish brute,seeking his comfort at this last cost of her pride. . . . But no man,she thought tragically, should ever say that he had spent the nightwithin the same four walls.

  She sprang forward, her hands outstretched, then shrank back.

  She could not touch him. Not only the perception of the ludicrous follyof matching her strength against his withheld her, but some flaming furyagainst putting a hand upon a man who had so repudiated her.

  Her brain grew alert. Suddenly very intent and collected she steppedaside and Johnny Byrd came in.

  Close to the wall she pressed, edging nearer and nearer the door, and ashe stumbled and fumbled with the blankets she gave a quick spring andflashed out.

  Like mad she ran across the clearing, through a thicket, and out againand away.

  On the instant he was after her; she heard his steps crashing behind herbut she had the start of her swiftness and the speed of her desperation.Brambles meant nothing to her, nor the thickets nor branches. She flewon and on, lost in the darkness, his shouts growing fainter and fainterin her ears.

  At last, in a shrub, she stopped to listen. She could hear nothing. Thencame a call--very faint. It came from the wrong direction. She hadturned and doubled like a hare and Johnny was pursuing, if he stillpursued, a mistaken way.

  She was safe . . . and she stood still for a few minutes to quiet herpounding heart and catch her gasping breath, and then she stole out,cautiously, anxiou
sly hurrying, to make her own way down.

  She had no idea of time or of distance. Vaguely she felt that it was themiddle of the night but that if she were quick, very quick, she mightreach the Lodge before it was too disastrously late. She might meet asearching party out for them--there would be searching parties if peoplewere truly worried at their absence.

  Of course if they thought it an elopement, they might not take thattrouble. They might be merely waiting and conjecturing.

  If only Cousin Jim had not returned to New York! He was so kind andconcerned that he would be searching. There would be a chance of hisunderstanding. But Cousin Jane--what would she believe?

  Cousin Jane had seen Johnny draw her significantly back.

  At her folly of the afternoon she looked back with horror. How bold shehad been in that new American freedom! Mamma had warned her--dear Mammaso far away, so innocent of this terrible disgrace. . . .

  Wildly she plunged on through the dark, hoping always for a path butfinding nothing but rough wilderness. She knew no landmarks to guideher, but down she went determinedly, down, down continually.

  An hour had passed. Perhaps two hours. The sky had grown blacker andblacker. There were occasional gusts of rain. The wind that had beenthreshing the tree tops blew with increasing fury.

  Jagged tridents of lightning flashed before her eyes. Thunder followedalmost instantly, great crashing peals that seemed to be rending theheavens.

  Maria Angelina felt as if the splinters must fall upon her. It was likethe voice of judgment.

  On she went, down, down, through a darkness that was chaos lit bylightning. Rain came, in a torrent of water, heavy as lead, drenchingher to the skin. Her hair had streamed loose and was plastered about herface, her throat, her arms. A strand like a wet rope wound about herwrist and delayed her. Often she slipped and fell.

  Still down. But if she should find the Lodge, what then? What would theythink of her, wet, torn, disheveled, an outcast of the night?

  She sobbed aloud as she went. She, who had come to America so proudly,so confidently of glad fortune, who had thought the world a fairy taleand believed that she had found its prince--what place on earth wouldthere be for her after this, disgraced and ashamed?

  They would ship her back to Mamma at once. And the scandal would travelwith her, whispered by tourists, blazoned by newspapers.

  And her family had so counted upon her! They had looked for such greatthings!

  Now she had utterly blackened their name, tarnished them all foreverwith her disrepute. Poor Julietta's hopes would be ruined. . . . No onewould want a Santonini. . . . Lucia would be furious. The Tostis mighteven repudiate her--certainly they would inflict their condescension.

  She could only disappear, hide in some nursing sisterhood.

  So ran her wild thoughts as she scrambled down these endless mountainsides. All the black fears that she had fought off earlier in theevening by her belief in Johnny's devotion were upon her now like a packof wolves. She wished that she could die at once and be out of it, yetwhen she heard the sudden wash of water, almost under her feet, shejumped aside and screamed.

  A river! In the night it looked wider than that one they had followedthat afternoon but it might only be another part of it.

  Very wearily she made her way along the bank, so mortally tired that itseemed as if every step must be her last. There was no underbrush tostruggle with now, for she had come to a grove of pines and their fallenneedles made a carpet for her lagging feet.

  The rain was nearly over, but she was too wet and too cold to takecomfort in that.

  More and more laggingly she went and at last, when a hidden root trippedher, she made no effort to rise, but lay prostrate, her cheek upon heroutflung arm, and yielded to the dark, drowsy oblivion that stolenumbingly over her.

  She would be glad, she thought, never to wake.