The Innocent Adventuress Read online

  CHAPTER II

  UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

  With whatever emotion Jane Blair had received the startling demand uponher hospitality she rallied nobly to the family call. She left herdaughter in the Adirondacks where they were summering and descended uponher husband in his New York office to rout him out to meet the girl withher.

  "An infernal shame--that's what I call it!" Jim Blair grumbled, facingthe steaming heat of the unholy customs shed. "It's an outrage--animposition----"

  "Oh, not all that, Jim! Lucy--that's the mother--and I used to visitlike this when we were girls. It was done then," his wife replied withan air of equable amusement.

  She added, "I rather think I did most of the visiting. I was awf'ly fondof Lucy."

  "That's different. You'll have a total stranger on your hands. . . . Areyou sure she speaks English?"

  "Oh, dear yes, she speaks English--don't you remember her in Rome? Shewas the littlest one. All the children speak English, Lucy wrote, exceptFrancisco who is 'very Italian,' which means he is a fascinatingspendthrift like the father, I suppose. . . . I imagine," said Mrs.Blair, "that Lucy has not found life in a palace all a bed of roses."

  "I remember the palace. . . . Warming pans!" said Mr. Blair grimly.

  His ill-humor lasted until the first glimpse of Maria Angelina's slenderfigure, and the first glance of Maria Angelina's trustfully appealingeyes.

  "Welcome to America," he said then very heartily, both his hands closingover the small fingers. "Welcome--_very_ welcome, my dear."

  And though Maria Angelina never knew it and Cousin Jane Blair nevertold, that was Maria Angelina's first American triumph.

  Some nine hours afterwards a stoutish gentleman in gray and a thinnishlady in beige and a fragile looking girl in white wound their way fromthe outer to the inner circle of tables next the dancing floor of theVandevoort.

  The room was crowded with men in light serge and women in gay summerfrocks; bright lights were shining under pink shades and sprays of pinkflowers on every table were breathing a faint perfume into an airalready impregnated with women's scents and heavy with odors of richfood. Now and then a saltish breeze stole through the draped windows onthe sound but was instantly scattered by the vigor of the hidden,whirling fans.

  Behind palms an orchestra clashed out the latest Blues and in thecleared space couples were speeding up and down to the syncopations,while between tables agile waiters balanced overloaded trays or whiskedsilver covers off scarlet lobsters or lit mysterious little lightsbelow tiny bubbling caldrons.

  Maria Angelina's soft lips were parted with excitement and her dark eyesround with wondering. This, indeed, was a new world. . . .

  It was gay--gayer than the Hotel Excelsior at Rome! It was a carnival ofa dinner!

  Ever since morning, when the cordiality of the new-found cousins haddissipated the first forlorn homesickness of arrival, she had beenlooking on at scenes that were like a film, ceaselessly unrolling.

  After luncheon, Cousin Jim with impulsive hospitality had carried heroff to see the Big Town--an expedition from which his wife relievedlywithdrew--and he had whirled Maria Angelina about in motors, plunged herinto roaring subways, whisked her up dizzying elevators and brought herout upon unbelievable heights, all the time expounding and explainingwith that passionate, possessive pride of the New Yorker by adoption,which left his young guest with the impression that he owned at leasthalf the city and was personally responsible for the other half.

  It had been very wonderful but Maria had expected New York to bewonderful. And she was not interested, save superficially, in cities.Life was the stuff her dreams were made on, and life was unfoldingvividly to her eager eyes at this gay dinner, promising her enchantedsenses the incredible richness and excitement for which she had come.

  And though she sat up very sedately, like a well-behaved child in themidst of blazing carnival, her glowing face, her breathless lips andwide, shining eyes revealed her innocent ardors and young expectancies.

  She was very proud of herself, in the midst of all the pridefulsplendor, proud of her new, absurdly big white hat, of her new, absurdlysmall white shoes, and of her new, white mull frock, soft and clingingand exquisite with the patient embroidery of the needlewoman.

  Its low cut neck left her throat bare and about her throat hung thestring of white coral that her father had given her in parting--whitecoral, with a pale, pale pink suffusing it.

  "Like a young girl's dreams," Santonini had said. "Snowy white--with ablush stealing over them."

  That was so like dear Papa! What dreams did he think his daughter was tohave in this New World upon her golden quest? And yet, though MariaAngelina's mocking little wit derided, her young heart believed somehowin the union of all the impossibilities. Dreams and blushes . . . andgood fortune. . . .

  Strange food was set before her; delicious jellied cold soups, andscarlet lobsters with giant claws; and Maria Angelina discovered thatexcitement had not dulled her appetite.

  The music sounded again and Cousin Jim asked her to dance. Shyly sheprotested that she did not know the American dances, and then, to herastonishment, he turned to his wife, and the two hurried out upon thefloor, leaving her alone and unattended at that conspicuous table.

  That was American freedom with a vengeance! She sat demurely, not daringto raise her lashes before the scrutiny she felt must be beating uponher, until her cousins returned, warm-faced and breathless.

  "You'll learn all this as soon as you get to the Lodge," Cousin Jimprophesied, in consolation.

  Maria Angelina smiled absently, her big eyes brilliant. Unconsciouslyshe was wondering what dancing could mean to these elders of hers. . . .Dancing was the stir of youth . . . the carnival of the blood . . . thebeat of expectancy and excitement. . . .

  "Why, there's Barry Elder!" Cousin Jane gave a quick cry of pleasure.

  "Barry Elder?"

  Cousin Jim turned to look, and Maria Angelina looked too, and saw ayoung man making his way to their table. He was a tall, thin, brownyoung man with close-cropped curly brown hair, and very bright, deep-seteyes. He was dressed immaculately in white with a gay tie of lavender.

  "Barry? _You_ in town?" Cousin Jane greeted him with an exaggeratedastonishment as he shook her hand.

  Maria Angelina noted that he did not kiss it. She had read that this wasnot done openly in America but was a mark of especial tenderness.

  "Why not?" he retorted promptly. "You seem to forget, dear lady, that Iam again a wor-rking man, without whom the World's Greatest Daily wouldlose half its circulation. Of course I'm here."

  "I thought you might be taking a vacation--in York Harbor," she said,laughing.

  "Oh, cat!" he derided. "Kitty, kitty, kitty."

  "Don't let her kid you, Barry," advised Cousin Jim, delving into hislobster.

  "But since you _are_ here," went on Cousin Jane, "you can meet my littlecousin from Italy, which is the reason why we are here. Her boat came inthis morning and she has never been away from home before. Mr. Elder,the Signorina Santonini."

  "Welcome to the city, Signorina," said the young man, with a quick,bright smile, stooping to gaze under the huge, white hat. He had oddeyes, not large, but vivid hazel, with yellow lights in them.

  "How do you like New York? What do you think of America? What is youropinion of prohibition and the uniformity of divorce laws? Have you everwritten _vers libre_? Are----"

  "Barry, stop bombarding the child!" exclaimed Mrs. Blair. "You are thefirst young man she has met in America. Stop making her fear the race."

  "Take him away and dance with him, Jane," said Mr. Blair. "This wasprobably prearranged, you know."

  If he believed it, he looked very tranquil, the startled Maria Angelinathought, surprised into an upward glance. The two men were smiling veryfrankly at each other. Mrs. Blair did not protest but rose, remarking,"Come, Barry, since we are discovered. You can have something coolafterwards."

  "I'll have little Cousin afterwards," said Barry Elder. "I
want to bethe first young man she has danced with in America."

  "You won't be the last," Mr. Blair told him with a twinkling glance atMaria Angelina's lovely little face.

  "One of Jane's youngsters," he added, explanatorily to her. "She alwayshas a lot around--she says they are the companions her son would havehad if she'd had one."

  Then, before Maria Angelina's polite but bewildered attention, he saidmore comprehensibly, "You'll find Jane a lot younger than Ruth . . .Barry's a clever chap--special work on one of the papers. Was in theaviation. Did a play that fluked last year. Too much Harvard in it, Iexpect. But a clever chap, very clever. Like him," he added decisively.

  Maria Angelina had heard of Harvard. Her mother's father had been aHarvard man. But she did not understand just why too much Harvard wouldmake a play fluke nor what a play did when it fluked, but she asked noquestions and sat very still, looking out at the dancing couples.

  She saw her Cousin Jane whirling past. She tried to imagine her motherdancing with young men at the Hotel Excelsior and she could not. Alreadyshe wondered if she had better write everything.

  Then the dancing pair came back to them and the young man sat down andtalked a little to her cousins. But at the music's recommencement heturned directly to her.

  "Signorina, are you going to do me the honor?"

  He had a merry way with him as if he were laughing ever so little ather, and Maria Angelina's heart which had been beating quite fast beforebegan to skip dizzily.

  She thanked Heaven that it was a waltz for, while the new steps wereunknown, Maria could waltz--that was a gift from Papa.

  "With pleasure, Signor," she murmured, rising.

  "But you must take off your hat," Mrs. Blair told her.

  "My hat? Take off?"

  "That brim is too wide, my dear. You couldn't dance."

  "But to go bareheaded--like a peasant?" Maria Angelina faltered and theylaughed.

  "It doesn't matter--it's much better than that brim," Mrs. Blairpronounced and obediently Maria's small hands rose and removed theovershadowing whiteness from the dark little head with its coronet ofheavy braids.

  She did not raise her eyes to see Barry Elder's sudden flash ofastonishment. Shyly she slipped within his clasp and let him swing herout into the circle of dancers.

  Maria Angelina could waltz, indeed. She was fairy-footed, and for somemoments Barry Elder was content to dance without speaking; then he benthis head closer to those dark braids.

  "So I am the first young man you have met in America?"

  Maria Angelina looked up through her lashes in quick gayety.

  "It is my first day, Signor!"

  "Your first American--Ah, but on the boat! There must have been youngmen on that boat, American young men?"

  "On that boat? Signor!" Maria Angelina laughed mischievously. "One readsof such in novels--yes? But as to that boat, it was a floating nunnery."

  "Oh, come now," he protested amusedly, "there must have been _some_men!"

  "Some men, yes--a ship's officer, some married ones, a grandfather ortwo--but nothing young and nothing American."

  "It must have been a great disappointment," said Barry enjoying himself.

  "It would not have mattered if there had been a thousand. The SignoraMariotti would have seen to it that I met no one. She is a _very_ goodchaperon, Signor!"

  "I thank her. She has preserved the dew on the rose, the flush on thedawn--the wax for the record and the--er--niche for the statue. I neverhad my statue done," said Barry gayly, "but if you would care for it, interra cotta, rather small and neat----"

  Confusedly Maria Angelina laughed.

  "And this is your maiden voyage of discovery!" He was looking down ather as he swept her about a corner. "Rash young person! Don't you knowwhat happened to your kinsman, Our First Discoverer?"

  "But what?"

  "He was loaded with fetters," said Barry solemnly.

  "Fetters? But what fetters could I fear?"

  "Have you never heard," he demanded of her upraised eyes, "of thefetters of matrimony?"

  "Oh, Signor!" Actually the color swept into her cheeks and her eyes fledfrom his, though she laughed lightly. "That is a golden fetter."

  "Sometimes," said he, dryly, "or gilded."

  But Maria Angelina was pursuing his jest. "It was not until Columbusreturned to his Europe that he was fettered. It was not from the--thenatives that he had such ill-treatment to fear."

  "Now, do you think the--the natives"--gayly Barry mimicked her quaintinflection--"will let you get away with _that_? Or let you return? . . .You have a great many discoveries before you, Signorina Santonini!"

  Deftly he circled, smiling down into her upturned face.

  Maria Angelina's eyes were shining, and the smooth oval of her cheekshad deepened from poppy pink to poppy rose. She was dancing in a dream,a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in aconfusion of young delight in which the extravagance of his words, thelight of his glances, the thrill of the violins were inextricablyinvolved in gayety and glamour.

  And then suddenly the dance was over, and he was returning her to hercousins. And he was saying good-by.

  "I have a table yonder--although I appear to have forsaken it," he wasexplaining. "Don't forget your first American, Signorina--I'm sorry youare going to-morrow, but perhaps I shall be seeing you in theAdirondacks before very long."

  He gave Maria Angelina a directly smiling glance whose boldness made hershiver.

  Then he turned to Mrs. Blair. "You know my uncle had a little shackbuilt on Old Chief Mountain--not so far from you at Wilderness. I alwayslike to run up there----"

  "Oh, no, you won't, Barry," said Mrs. Blair, laughing incomprehensibly."You'll be running where the breaking waves dash high, on a stern androck-bound coast."

  He met the sally with answering laughter a trifle forced.

  "I'm flattered you think me so constant! But you underestimate thecharms of novelty. . . . If I should meet, say, a _petite brune_, donein cotton wool and dewy with innocence----"

  "You're incorrigible," vowed the lady. "I have no faith in you!"

  "Not even in my incorrigibility?"

  "I'll believe it when I see you again. . . . Love to Leila."

  He made a mocking grimace at her.

  Then he stooped to clasp Maria Angelina's hand. "_A rivederci_,Signorina," he insisted. "Don't you believe a thing she tells you aboutme. . . . I'm a poor, misunderstood young man in a world of women._Addio_, Signorina--_a rivederci_."

  And then he was gone, so gay and brown and smiling.

  Sudden anguish swept down upon Maria Angelina, like the cold mistralupon the southlands.

  He was gone. . . . Would she really see him again? . . . Would he cometo those mountains?

  But why would he not? He had spoken of it, all of himself . . . he hadthat place he called a shack. That was beautiful good fortune--all of apart of the amazing fairy story of the New World. . . . And he hadlooked so at her. He had made such jokes. He had pressed her hands . . .ever so lightly but without mistake. . . .

  And his eyes, that shining brightness of his eyes. . . .

  "Why rub it in about York Harbor?"

  Cousin Jim was speaking and Maria Angelina came out of her dream withsudden, painful intensity. Instinctively she divined that here wassomething vital to her hope, and while her young face held the schooled,unstirred detachment of the _jeune fille_, her senses were strainingnervously for any flicker of enlightenment.

  "Why not rub it in?" countered Cousin Jane briskly. "He'll go therebefore long, and he might as well know that he isn't throwing any sandin our eyes. . . . This sulking here in town is simply to punish her."

  "Perhaps he isn't sulking. Perhaps he doesn't care to run after her anymore. He may not be as keen about Leila Grey as you women think."

  Maria Angelina's involuntary glance at Mrs. Blair caught the superiorassurance of her smile.

  "My dear Jim! He was simply mad about her. That last lea
ve, before hewent to France, he only went places to meet her."

  "Well, he may have got over it. Men do," argued Cousin Jim stubbornly.

  "Yes," echoed Maria Angelina's beating heart in hope, "men do!"

  Cousin Jane laughed. "Men don't get over Leila Grey--not if Leila Greywants to keep them."

  "If she wanted so darn much to keep him why didn't she take him then?"

  "I didn't say she wanted to keep him _then_." Mrs. Blair's tones weremysteriously, ironically significant. "Leila wasn't throwing herselfaway on any young officer--with nothing but his insurance. It was BobbyMartin that _she_ was after----"

  "Gad! Was she?" Cousin Jim was patently struck by this. "Why, Bobby'sjust a kid and she----"

  "There's not two years' difference between them--in _years_. But Leilacame out very young--and she's the most thoroughly calculating----"

  "Oh, come now, Jane--just because the girl didn't succumb to theimpecunious Barry and did like the endowed Bobby----! She may reallyhave liked him, you know."

  "Oh, come now, yourself, Jim," retorted his wife good-humoredly. "Justbecause she has blue eyes! No, if Leila really liked anybody I alwayshad the notion it was Barry--but she _wanted_ Bobby."

  For a long moment Cousin Jim was silent, turning the thing over with hiscigar. Maria Angelina sat still as a mouse, fearful to breathe lest thebewildering revelations cease. Cousin Jane, over her second cup ofcoffee, had the air of a humorous and superior oracle.

  Then Mr. Blair said slowly, "And Bobby couldn't see her?"

  He had an air of asking if Bobby were indeed of adamant and Mrs. Blairhesitated imperceptibly over the sweeping negative. Equally slowly, "Oh,Bobby _liked_ her, of course--she may have turned his head," she threwout, "but I don't believe he ever lost it for a moment. And after he metRuth that summer at Plattsburg----"

  The implication floated there, tenuous, iridescent. Even to MariaAngelina's eyes it was an arch of promise.

  Ruth was their daughter, the cousin of her own age. And the unknownBobby was some one who liked Ruth. And he was some one whom this LeilaGrey had tried to ensnare--although all the time Mrs. Blair suspectedher of liking more the Signor Barry Elder.

  Hotly Maria Angelina's precipitous intuitions endorsed that supposition.Of course this Leila liked that Barry Elder. Of course. . . . But shehad not taken him. He was an officer, then--without fortune. MariaAngelina was familiar enough with _that_ story. But she had supposedthat here, in America, where dowries were not exigent and the youngpeople were free, there was more romance. And now it was not evenLeila's parents who had interfered, apparently, but Leila herself.

  What was it Mrs. Blair had said? Thoroughly calculating. . . .Thoroughly calculating--and blue eyes. . . .

  Maria Angelina felt a quick little inrush of fear. If it should beblue eyes that Americans--that is, to say now, that BarryElder--preferred----!

  And then she wondered why, if this Leila with the blue eyes had nottaken Barry Elder before, Cousin Jane now regarded it as a foregoneconclusion between them? Was it because she could not get that SignorBobby Martin? Or was Barry Elder more successful now that he had leftthe army?

  She puzzled away at it, like a very still little cat at anindestructible mouse, but dared say not a word. And while she worriedaway her surface attention was caught by the glance of candid humorexchanged between Mr. Blair and his wife.

  "Ah, Jane, Jane," he was saying, in mock deprecation, "is that why weare spending the summer at Wilderness, not two miles from the Martinplace----?"

  Mrs. Blair was smiling, but her eyes were serious. "I preferred that tohaving Ruth at a house party at the Martins," she said quietly.

  At that Maria Angelina ceased to attend. She would know soon enoughabout her Cousin Ruth and Bobby Martin. But as for Barry Elder and LeilaGrey----! Had he cared? Had she? . . . Unconsciously her young heartrepudiated her cousin's reading of the affair. As if Barry Elder wouldbe unsuccessful with any woman that he wanted! That was unbelievable. Hehad not wanted her--enough.

  He could not want Leila now or he would not have spoken so of coming tothe mountains to see _her_--his direct glance had been a promise, hiseyes a prophecy.

  Dared she believe him? Dared she trust? But he was no deceiver, noflirt, like the lady-killers who used to come to the Palazzo to bow overLucia's hand and eye each other with that half hostile, half knowingswagger. She had watched them. . . . But this was America.

  And Barry Elder was--different.

  She was lost to the world about her now. Its color and motion and hotcounterfeit of life beat insensibly upon her; she was aware of it onlyas an imposition, a denial to that something within her which wanted torelax into quiet and dreaming, which wanted to live over and over againthe intoxicating excitement, the looks, the words. . . .

  She was grateful when Cousin Jane declared for an early return. Shecould hardly wait to be alone.

  "_What did I tell you?_" Jane Blair stopped suddenly in their progressto the door and turned to her husband in low-toned triumph. "She's withhim. Leila's with him."

  "Huh?" said Cousin Jim unexcitedly.

  "She's pretended some errand in town--she's come in to get hold of himagain," went on Cousin Jane hurriedly, as one who tells the story of theact to the unobservant. "She's afraid to leave him alone. . . . And henever mentioned her. I wonder----"

  Maria Angelina's eyes had followed theirs. She saw a group about atable, she saw Barry Elder's white-clad shoulders and curly brown head.She saw, unregardfully, a man and woman with him, but all her eagerness,all her straining vision was on the young girl with him--a girl soblonde, so beautiful that a pang went to Maria Angelina's heart. Shelearned pain in a single throb.

  She heard Cousin Jim quoting oddly in undertone, "'And Beauty drew him,by a single hair,'" and the words entered her consciousness hauntingly.

  If Leila Grey looked like that--why then----

  Yet he had said that he would come!

  Maria Angelina's first night in America, like that last night in Italy,was of sleepless watching through the dark. But now there were nochild's tears at leaving home. There was no anxious planning for poorJulietta. Already Julietta and Lucia and the Palazzo, even Papa anddear, dear Mamma, appeared strangely unreal--like a vanished spell--andonly this night was real and this strange expectant stir in her.

  And then she fell asleep and dreamed that Barry Elder was advancing toher across the long drawing-room of the Palazzo Santonini and as sheturned to receive him Lucia stepped between, saying, "He is for me,instead of Paolo Tosti," and behold! Lucia's eyes were as blue as thesea and Lucia's hair was as golden as amber and her face was the face ofthe girl in the restaurant.