The Innocent Adventuress Read online

  CHAPTER III

  LUNCHEON AT THE LODGE

  Wilderness Lodge, Cousin Jane had said, was a simple little place in themountains, not a hotel but rather a club house where only certain peoplecould go, and Maria Angelina had pictured a white stucco pension-hotelset against some background like the bare, bright hills of Italy.

  She found a green smother of forest, an ocean of greenness with emeraldcrests rising higher and higher like giant waves, and at the end of thelong motor trip the Lodge at last disclosed itself as a low, dark,rambling building, set in a clearing behind a blue bend of sudden river.

  And built of logs! Did people of position live yet in logs in America?demanded the girl's secret astonishment as the motor whirled across therustic bridge and stopped before the wide steps of a veranda full ofpeople.

  Springing down the steps, two at a time, came a tall, short-skirted girlin white.

  "Dad--you came, too!" she cried. "Oh, that's bully. You must enter thetournament--Mother, did you remember about the cup and the--you know?What we talked of for the booby?"

  She had a loud, gay voice like a boy's and as Maria was drawn into thecommotion of greetings, she opened wide, half-intimidated eyes at thebigness and brownness of this Cousin Ruth.

  She had expected Heaven knows what of incredible charm in the girl whohad detached the Signor Bobby Martin from the siren Leila. Her instantwonder was succeeded by a sensation of gay relief. After all, thesethings went by chance and favor. . . . And if Bobby Martin could preferthis brown young girl to that vision at the restaurant why then--thenperhaps there was also a chance for--what was it the young Signor Elderhad called her? A _petite brune_ wrapped in cotton wool.

  These thoughts flashed through her as one thought as she followed herthree cousins across the wide verandas, full of interested eyes, intothe Lodge and up the stairs to their rooms, where Ruth directed the menin placing the big trunk and the bags and hospitably explained thegeography of the suite.

  "My room's on that side and Dad's and Mother's is just across--and weall have to use this one bath--stupid, isn't it, but Dad is hardly everhere and there's running water in the rooms. You'll survive, won't you?"

  Hastily Maria Angelina assured her that she would.

  Glimpsing the white-tiled splendors of this bath she wondered how Ruthwould survive the tin tub, set absurdly in a red plush room of thePalazzo. . . .

  "Now you know your way about," the American girl rattled on, her tonenegligent, her eyes colored with a little warmer interest as her glanceswept her foreign little cousin. "Frightfully hot, wasn't it? I'll clearout so you can pop into the tub. You'll just have time before luncheon,"she assured her and was off.

  The next instant, from closed doors beyond, her voice rose in unguardedexclamation.

  "Oh, you baby doll! Mother, did you ever----"

  The voices sank from hearing and Maria Angelina was left with thefeeling that a baby doll was not a desirable being in America. ThisCousin Ruth intimidated her and her breezy indifference and lack ofaffectionate interest shot the visitor with the troubled suspicion thather own presence was entirely superfluous to her cousin's scheme ofthings. She felt more at home with the elders.

  Uncertainly she crossed to her big trunk and stood looking down on thebold labels.

  How long since she and Mamma had packed it, with dear Julietta smoothingthe folds in place! And how far away they all were. . . . It was not theold Palazzo now that was unreal--it was this new, bright world and allthe strange faces.

  The chintz-decked room with its view of alien mountains seemed suddenlyremote and lonely.

  Her hands shook a little as she unpacked a tray of pretty dresses andlaid them carefully across the bed. . . . Unconsciously she hadanticipated a warmer welcome from this young cousin. . . . She winkedaway the tears that threatened to stain the bright ribbons, and stoleinto the splendor of the white bathroom, marveling at its luxuriouscontrast to the logs without.

  The water refreshed her. She felt more cheerful, and when she came to achoice of frocks, decidedly a new current of interest was stealingthrough life again.

  First impressions were so terribly important! She wanted to do honor tothe Blairs--to justify the hopes of Mamma. This was not enough of anoccasion for the white mull. The silks look hot and citified. Hesitantlyshe selected the apricot organdie with a deeper-shaded sash; it wassimple for all its glowing color, though the short frilled sleevesstruck her as perhaps too chic. It had been a copy of one of Lucia'sfrocks, that one bought to such advantage of Madame Revenant.

  With it went a golden-strawed hat--but Maria Angelina was uncertainabout the hat.

  Did you wear one at a hotel--when you lived at a hotel? Mamma'sadmonitions did not cover that. She put the hat on; she took the hatoff. She rather liked it on--but she dropped it on the bed at Ruth'ssudden knock and felt a sense of escape for Ruth was hatless.

  And Ruth still wore the same short white skirt and white blouse, open atthe throat, in which she had greeted them. . . . Was the apricot toomuch then of a toilette? Ruth's eyes were frankly on it; her expressionwas odd.

  But Mrs. Blair had changed. She appeared now in blue linen, very smartand trim.

  Worriedly Maria Angelina's dark eyes went from one to the other.

  "Is this--is this what I should wear?" she asked timidly. "Am I not--asyou wish?"

  It would have taken a hard heart to wish her otherwise.

  "It's very pretty," said Cousin Jane in quick reassurance.

  "Too pretty, s'all," said Cousin Ruth. "But it won't be wasted. . . .Bobby Martin is staying to luncheon," she flung casually at her parents."Has a guest with him. You remember Johnny Byrd."

  American freedom, indeed! thought Maria Angelina following down theslippery stairs into the wide hall below where, in a boulder fireplacethat was surmounted by a stag's head, a small blaze was flickeringdespite the warmth of the day.

  Wasteful, thought Maria Angelina reprovingly. One could see that theAmericans had never suffered for fuel. . . .

  Upon a huge, black fur rug before the fire two young men were waiting.

  Demurely Maria thought of the letter she would write home thatnight--one young man the first evening in New York, two young men thefirst luncheon at the Lodge. Decidedly, America brimmed with young men!

  Meanwhile, Ruth was presenting them. The big dark youth, heavy and lazymoving, was the Signor Bob Martin.

  The other, Johnny Byrd, was shorter and broad of shoulder; he hadreddish blonde hair slightly parted and brushed straight back; he had ashort nose with freckles and blue eyes with light lashes. When helaughed--and he seemed always laughing--he showed splendid teeth.

  Both young men stared--but staring was a man's prerogative in Italy andMaria Angelina was unperturbed. At table she sat serenely, her darklashes shading the oval of her cheeks, while the young men's eyes--andone pair of them, especially--took in the black, braid-bound head andthe small, Madonna-like face, faintly flushed by sun and wind, above thegolden glow of the sheer frock.

  Then Johnny Byrd leaned across the table towards her.

  "I say, Signorina," he began abruptly, "what's the Italian for peach?"and as Maria Angelina looked up and started very innocently to explain,he leaned back and burst into a shout of amusement in which the othersmore moderately joined.

  "Don't let him get you," was Ruth's unintelligible advice, and BobbyMartin turned to his friend to admonish, "Now, Johnny, don't startanything. . . . Johnny's such a good little starter!"

  "And a poor finisher," added Ruth smartly and both young men laughedagain as at a very good joke.

  "A starter--but not a beginner, eh?" chuckled Cousin Jim, and Mrs. Blairsmiled at both young men even as she protested, "This is the noisiesttable in the room!"

  It _was_ a noisy table. Maria Angelina was astounded at the hilarity ofthat meal. Already she began censoring her report to Mamma. CertainlyMamma would never understand Ruth's elbows on the table, her shouts oflaughter--or the pellets of bread she flipped.


  And the words they used! Maria could only feel that the language ofMamma must be singularly antiquated. So much she did not understand. . . had never heard. . . . What, indeed, was a simp, a boob, a nut?What a poor fish? . . . She held her peace, and listened, confused bythe astounding vocabulary and the even more astounding intimacy. Whatthings they said to each other in jest!

  And whatever Maria Angelina said they took in jest. She evoked anappreciative peal when she ventured that the Lodge must be very oldbecause she had read that the first settlers made their homes of logs.

  "I'll take you up and show you _our_ ancestral hut," declared BobMartin. "Where Granddad used to stretch the Red Skins to dry by theback door--before tanning 'em for raincoats."

  "Really?" said Maria Angelina ingenuously, then at sight of hisexpression, "But how shall I know what you tell me is true or not?" sheappealed. "It all sounds so strange to me--the truth as well."

  "You look at _me_," said Johnny Byrd leaning forward. "When I shut thiseye, so, you shake your head at them. When I nod--you can believe."

  "But you will not always be there----"

  "I'll say you're wrong," he retorted. "I'm going to be there so usually,like the weather--did you say you wanted me to stay a month, Bob?"

  Color stole into the young girl's cheeks even while she laughed withthem. She was conscious of a faint and confused half-distress beneathher mounting confidence. They were so _very_ jocular. . . .

  Of course this was but chaff, she understood, and she began to wonder ifthat other, that young Signor Elder, had been but joking. It might bethe American way. . . . And yet this was all flattering chaff and soperhaps she could trust the flattery of her secret hope.

  Surely, surely, it was all going to happen. He would come--she would seehim again.

  Meanwhile she shook her young braids at Johnny Byrd.

  "But you are so sudden! I think he is a flirter, yes?" she said gayly toMr. Blair who smiled back appreciatively and a trifle protectively ather.

  But Bobby Martin drawled, "Oh, no, he's not. He's too careful," and morelaughter ensued.

  After luncheon they went back into the hall where the three men driftedout into a side room where cigars and cigarettes were sold, and beganfilling their cases, while Mrs. Blair stepped out on the verandas andjoined a group there. Ruth remained by the fireplace, and Maria Angelinawaited by her.

  "Your friends are very nice," she began with a certain diffidence, asher cousin had nothing to say. "That Johnny Byrd--he is very funny----"

  "Oh, Johnny's funny," said Ruth in an odd voice. She added, "Regularspoiled baby--had everything his way. Only an old guardian to boss him."

  "You mean he is an orphan?"

  "Completely."

  Maria Angelina did not smile. "But that is very sad," she said soberly."No home life----"

  "Don't get it into your head that Johnny Byrd wants any _home life_,"said her cousin dryly, and with a hint of hard warning in her negligentvoice. "He's been dodging home life ever since he wore long trousers."

  "He must then," Maria Angelina deduced, very simply, "be rich."

  "He's one of the Long Island Byrds."

  It sounded to Maria like a flock of ducks, but she perceived that it wasgiven for affirmation. She followed Ruth's glance to where the backs ofthe young men's heads were visible, bending over some coins they wereapparently matching. . . . Johnny Byrd's head was flaming in thesunshine. . . .

  "He's a bird from a hard-boiled egg," Ruth said with a smile of inneramusement.

  But whatever cryptic signal she flashed slipped unseen from MariaAngelina's vision. Johnny Byrd was nice, but it was a gay, cheery,everyday sort of niceness, she thought, with none of the quicksilvercharm of the young man at the dinner dance. . . . And she wasunimpressed by Johnny's money. She took the millionaires in America asfor granted as fish in the sea.

  She merely felt cheerfully that Fate was galloping along the expectedcourse.

  Subconsciously, perhaps, she recorded a possible second string to herbow.

  With tact, she thought, she turned the talk to Ruth's young man.

  "And the Signor Bob Martin--I suppose he, too, is a millionaire," shesmiled, and was astonished at Ruth's derisive laugh.

  "Not unless he murders his father," said that barbaric young woman.

  She added, relenting towards her cousin's ignorance, "Oh, Bob hasn'tanything of his own, you know. . . . But his father's taking him intobusiness this fall."

  Maria Angelina was bewildered. Distinctly she had understood, from theLeila Grey conversation, that Bobby Martin was a very eligible young manand yet here was her cousin flouting any financial congratulation.

  Hesitantly, "Is his father--in a good business?" she offered, and wonfrom Ruth more merriment as inexplicable as her speech.

  "He's in Steel," she murmured, which was no enlightenment to Maria.

  She ventured to more familiar ground.

  "He is very handsome."

  To her astonishment Ruth snorted. . . . Now Lucia always bridledconsciously when one praised Paolo Tosti.

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

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

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

  And young Martin laughed--the indolent, submissive laughter with whichhe 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 offall newcomers. . . . Was _that_ why she refused to admit his wealth orhis good looks--she wanted to invite no competition?

  Maria Angelina believed she saw the light.

  She would reassure Ruth, she thought eagerly. She was a young person ofhonor. Never would she attempt to divert a glance from her cousin'sadmirer.

  Meanwhile a debate was carried on between golf and tennis, and wascarried in favor of golf by Cousin Jim. There was unintelligible talk ofhazards and bunkers and handicaps for the tournament, of records and ofbogey, 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 thegolfers--as Johnny Byrd suggested--for Cousin Jane declared her frockand slippers too delicate. She must get into something more appropriate.

  And in Maria Angelina the worried suspicion woke that she had nothingmore appropriate.

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

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

  But Maria Angelina's small hands clenched tightly at her sides in apanic 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--theright some one----

  She dropped beside her trunk of pretty things in a passion of frightenedtears.

  But the night swung her back to triumph again.

  For although she could not golf, and her hands could not wield a tennisracket, Maria Angelina could play a guitar and she could sing to it likethe angels she had been named for. And the young people at the Lodge hada way of gathering in the dark upon the wide steps and strumming chordsand warbling strange strains about intimate emotions. And as MariaAngelina'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 wassinging the songs of Italy, sometimes in English, whe
n she knew thewords, that all might join in the choruses, but more often in their ownItalian.

  A crescent moon edged over the shadowy dark of the mountains before her. . . the same moon whose silver thread of light slipped down those farApennine hills of home and touched the dome of old Saint Peter's. Shefelt 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 thewhir of wheels on the road below, and all her nerves tightened likewires and hummed with the charged currents.

  Out of the dark she conjured a tall young figure advancing . . . afigure topped by short-cut curly brown hair . . . a figure with eyes ofincredible 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 thatexpiring hope. "He will come soon. He said so. And perhaps again it willbe like this and he will find me here----"

  "'O Sole mio----"

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