The Innocent Adventuress Part 3

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

"But since you _are_ here," went on Cousin Jane, "you can meet my little cousin from Italy, which is the reason why we are here. Her boat came in this 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 odd eyes, not large, but vivid hazel, with yellow lights in them.

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

"Barry, stop bombarding the child!" exclaimed Mrs. Blair. "You are the first 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 was probably prearranged, you know."

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

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

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

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

Then, before Maria Angelina's polite but bewildered attention, he said more comprehensibly, "You'll find Jane a lot younger than Ruth . . .

Barry's a clever chap--special work on one of the papers. Was in the aviation. Did a play that fluked last year. Too much Harvard in it, I expect. But a clever chap, very clever. Like him," he added decisively.

Maria Angelina had heard of Harvard. Her mother's father had been a Harvard man. But she did not understand just why too much Harvard would make a play fluke nor what a play did when it fluked, but she asked no questions and sat very still, looking out at the dancing couples.

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

Then the dancing pair came back to them and the young man sat down and talked a little to her cousins. But at the music's recommencement he turned 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 at her, and Maria Angelina's heart which had been beating quite fast before began to skip dizzily.

She thanked Heaven that it was a waltz for, while the new steps were unknown, 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 they laughed.

"It doesn't matter--it's much better than that brim," Mrs. Blair p.r.o.nounced and obediently Maria's small hands rose and removed the overshadowing whiteness from the dark little head with its coronet of heavy braids.

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

Maria Angelina could waltz, indeed. She was fairy-footed, and for some moments Barry Elder was content to dance without speaking; then he bent his 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 young men on that boat, American young men?"

"On that boat? Signor!" Maria Angelina laughed mischievously. "One reads of 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 s.h.i.+p's officer, some married ones, a grandfather or two--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 Signora Mariotti would have seen to it that I met no one. She is a _very_ good chaperon, Signor!"

"I thank her. She has preserved the dew on the rose, the flush on the dawn--the wax for the record and the--er--niche for the statue. I never had my statue done," said Barry gayly, "but if you would care for it, in terra cotta, rather small and neat----"

Confusedly Maria Angelina laughed.

"And this is your maiden voyage of discovery!" He was looking down at her as he swept her about a corner. "Rash young person! Don't you know what 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 the fetters of matrimony?"

"Oh, Signor!" Actually the color swept into her cheeks and her eyes fled from 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 Columbus returned to his Europe that he was fettered. It was not from the--the natives that he had such ill-treatment to fear."

"Now, do you think the--the natives"--gayly Barry mimicked her quaint inflection--"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 s.h.i.+ning, and the smooth oval of her cheeks had deepened from poppy pink to poppy rose. She was dancing in a dream, a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in a confusion of young delight in which the extravagance of his words, the light of his glances, the thrill of the violins were inextricably involved in gayety and glamour.

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

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