The Innocent Adventuress

ied nobly to the family call. She left her daughter in the Adirondacks where they were summering

air grumbled, facing the steaming heat of the unh

ed to visit like this when we were girls. It was done t

I did most of the visiting.

otal stranger on your hands. . . .

English, Lucy wrote, except Francisco who is 'very Italian,' which means he is a fascinating spendthrift like the f

. . . . Warming pans!"

aria Angelina's slender figure, and the first gla

rtily, both his hands closing over the smal

nd Cousin Jane Blair never told, that was

y in beige and a fragile looking girl in white wound their way from the ou

lowers on every table were breathing a faint perfume into an air already impregnated with women's scents and heavy with odors of rich food. No

up and down to the syncopations, while between tables agile waiters balanced overloaded trays or whi

excitement and her dark eyes round with wo

otel Excelsior at Rome! It

d dissipated the first forlorn homesickness of arrival, she had bee

ut 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 passion

rficially, in cities. Life was the stuff her dreams were made on, and life was unfolding vividly to her eager eye

midst of blazing carnival, her glowing face, her breathless lips and w

w, absurdly big white hat, of her new, absurdly small white shoes, and of her new, white

ung the string of white coral that her father had given her

ntonini had said. "Snowy white-w

her golden quest? And yet, though Maria Angelina's mocking little wit derided, her young heart beli

ups, and scarlet lobsters with giant claws; and Maria Ange

not know the American dances, and then, to her astonishment, he turned to his wife, and th

aring to raise her lashes before the scrutiny she felt must be beat

as you get to the Lodge," Cousi

ng what dancing could mean to these elders of hers. . . . Dancing was the stir of you

er!" Cousin Jane gave a

ry E

to their table. He was a tall, thin, brown young man with close-cropped curly brown hair, and

greeted him with an exaggerated

She had read that this was not done openly in

, that I am again a wor-rking man, without whom the World's Gre

king a vacation-in York Ha

erided. "Kitty,

arry," advised Cousin Jim

rom Italy, which is the reason why we are here. Her boat came in this morning a

, bright smile, stooping to gaze under the huge, white hat. He had

What is your opinion of prohibition and the uniformity

rs. Blair. "You are the first young man she has

, Jane," said Mr. Blair. "This wa

upward glance. The two men were smiling very frankly at each other. Mrs. Blair did not protest bu

id Barry Elder. "I want to be the first

told him with a twinkling glance at

her. "She always has a lot around-she says they are t

younger than Ruth . . . Barry's a clever chap-special work on one of the papers. Was in the aviation. Did a play tha

not understand just why too much Harvard would make a play fluke nor what a play did when i

mother dancing with young men at the Hotel Excelsior and she cou

man sat down and talked a little to her cousins. But a

you going to d

r so little at her, and Maria Angelina's heart which h

or, while the new steps were unknown, Ma

Signor," she m

off your hat," Mr

t? Tak

wide, my dear. Y

a peasant?" Maria Angelin

ced and obediently Maria's small hands rose and removed the overshadowi

flash of astonishment. Shyly she slipped within his cla

d for some moments Barry Elder was content to dance without

young man you hav

d up through her las

first da

boat! There must have been young m

ischievously. "One reads of such in novels-yes?

ested amusedly, "there

married ones, a grandfather or two-b

at disappointment," said

sand. The Signora Mariotti would have seen to it tha

for the record and the-er-niche for the statue. I never had my statue done," said B

Maria Angel

wn at her as he swept her about a corner. "Rash young person! Do

t w

ith fetters," sa

what fetters

manded of her upraised eyes,

er cheeks and her eyes fled from his, though

said he, dryl

lumbus returned to his Europe that he was fettered. It was not

inflection-"will let you get away with that? Or let you return? . .

smiling down into

ng in a dream, a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in a confusion of young delight in which the

r, and he was returning her to her

ing. "Don't forget your first American, Signorina-I'm sorry you are going to-

irectly smiling glance who

little shack built on Old Chief Mountain-not so far f

incomprehensibly. "You'll be running where the break

th answering laught

ate the charms of novelty. . . . If I should meet, say, a p

" vowed the lady. "I

n my incorr

n I see you again. .

ocking grim

insisted. "Don't you believe a thing she tells you about me. . . . I'm a poor

one, so gay and b

n Maria Angelina, like the co

eally see him again? . . . Wou

s beautiful good fortune-all of a part of the amazing fairy story of the New World. . . . And he had looked

shining brightnes

in about Y

vely she divined that here was something vital to her hope, and while her young face held the schooled, un

efore long, and he might as well know that he isn't throwing any sand

care to run after her any more. He may not b

ance at Mrs. Blair caught the s

er. That last leave, before he went to

over it. Men do," argue

ngelina's beating hea

t get over Leila Grey-not if L

much to keep him why di

ly, ironically significant. "Leila wasn't throwing herself away on any young o

patently struck by this. "Why

hem-in years. But Leila came out very young-

cumb to the impecunious Barry and did like the endow

. "Just because she has blue eyes! No, if Leila really liked an

gelina sat still as a mouse, fearful to breathe lest the bewildering revelations cease.

slowly, "And Bobby

eeping negative. Equally slowly, "Oh, Bobby liked her, of course-she may have turned his head," she threw

us, iridescent. Even to Maria Angeli

one who liked Ruth. And he was some one whom this Leila Grey had tried to ensnare-a

im. 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 wer

oroughly calculating. . . . Thoroug

ar. If it should be blue eyes that Americans-th

ousin Jane now regarded it as a foregone conclusion between them? Was it because she could not

, but dared say not a word. And while she worried away her surface attention wa

ion, "is that why we are spending the summer at W

ious. "I preferred that to having Ruth at a h

lder and Leila Grey--! Had he cared? Had she? . . . Unconsciously her young heart repudiated her cousin's reading of the affai

oken so of coming to the mountains to see her-his d

illers who used to come to the Palazzo to bow over Lucia's hand and eye each other with t

Elder was-

r; she was aware of it only as an imposition, a denial to that something within her which wanted to relax into qu

e declared for an early return.

their progress to the door and turned to her husband i

Cousin Jim

on Cousin Jane hurriedly, as one who tells the story of the act to the unobservan

brown head. She saw, unregardfully, a man and woman with him, but all her eagerness, all her straining vision was on the youn

, "'And Beauty drew him, by a single hair,'" an

looked like

said that h

o child's tears at leaving home. There was no anxious planning for poor Julietta. Already Julietta and Lucia and the Palazzo, even Papa

ni and as she turned to receive him Lucia stepped between, saying, "He is for me, instead of Paolo Tosti," and behold! Lucia's