But she did not admit it. She said that she was through with hope. She said that she did not care whether he came or not. She said she did not want him to come.

He was with Leila Grey, of course.

Well--she was with Johnny Byrd.

She was with him every day, for with that amazing American freedom, Bobby Martin came down to see Ruth every day and the four young people with other couples from the Lodge were always involved in some game, some drive, some expedition.

But it was not accident nor a lazy concurrence with propinquity that kept Johnny Byrd at Maria Angelina's side.

Openly he announced himself as tied hand and foot. His admiration was as vivid as his red roadster. It was as unabashed and clamant as his motor horn. He reveled in her. He monopolized her. In his own words, he lapped her up.

With amazing simplicity Maria Angelina accepted this miracle. It was only a second-rate miracle to her, for it was not the desire of her heart, and she was uneasy about it. She did not want to be involved with Johnny Byrd if Barry Elder should arrive. . . . Of course, if she had never met Barry Elder. . . .

Johnny Byrd was a very nice, merry boy. And he was rich . . .

independent. . . . If one has never tasted _Asti Spumante_, then one can easily be pleased with _Chianti_.

Her secret dream was the young girl's protection against over-eagerness.

To her young hostess this indifference came as an enormous relief.

"She's all right," Ruth reported to her mother, upon an afternoon that Maria Angelina had taken herself downstairs to the piano and to a prospective call from Johnny Byrd while Ruth herself, in riding togs, awaited Bob Martin and his horses.

"She isn't jumping down Johnny's throat at all," the girl went on. "I was afraid, that first day, when she asked such nutty questions. . . .

But she seems to take it all for granted. That ought to hold Johnny for a while--long enough so he won't get tired and throw her down for somebody else before he goes."

"You think, then, there isn't a chance of----?"

Mrs. Blair left the hypothesis in midair, convicted of ancient sentiment by the frank amus.e.m.e.nt of her young daughter's look.

"No, my dear, there isn't a chance of," Ruth so competently informed her that Mrs. Blair, in revolt, was moved to murmur, "After all, Ruth, people do fall in love and get married in this world."

"Oh, yes."

Patiently Ruth gave this thought her consideration and in fair-mindedness turned her scrutiny upon past days to evoke some sign that should contradict her own conclusions.

"She's got something--it's something different from the rest of us--but it would take more than that to do for Johnny Byrd."

Definitely, Ruth shook her head.

"You don't suppose she's beginning to think----?" hazarded Mrs. Blair.

Better than her daughter, she envisaged the circ.u.mstances which might have led, in her Cousin Lucy's mind, to this young girl's visit. Lucy, herself, had been taken abroad in those early days by a competent aunt.

Now Lucy, in the turn of the tide, was sending her daughter to America.

Jane Blair would have liked to play fairy G.o.dmother, to make a benevolent gesture, to scatter largess. . . .

But she was not going to have it said that she was a fortune hunter. She was not going to alarm Johnny Byrd and implicate Bob Martin and disturb the delicate balance between him and Ruth.

Lucy's daughter must take her chances. This wasn't Europe.

"Well, I've said enough to her," Ruth stated briskly, in answer to her mother's supposition. "I don't know how much she believes. . . . You know Ri-Ri is seething with Old World sentiment and she may be such a little nut as to think--but she doesn't act as if she really cared about it. It isn't just a pose. . . . Do you imagine," said Ruth, suddenly lapsing into a little Old World sentiment herself, "that she's gone on some one in Italy and they sent her over to forget him? That might account----"

"Lucy's letter didn't sound like it. She was very emphatic about Maria Angelina's knowing nothing of the world or young men. I rather gathered," Mrs. Blair made out, "that the family had a plain daughter to marry off and wanted the pretty one in ambush for a while--they take care of those things, you know."

"And I suppose if she copped a millionaire in the ambush they wouldn't howl b.l.o.o.d.y murder," said the girl, with admirable intuition.

"Oh, well----" She yawned and looked out of the window. "She's probably having the time of her life. . . . I'm grateful she turned out such a little peach. . . . When she goes back and marries some fat spaghetti it will give her something to moon about to remember how she and Johnny Byrd used to sit out and strum to the stars---- There he is now."

"Bob?" said Mrs. Blair absently, her mind occupied by her young daughter's large sophistication.

"Johnny," said Ruth.

She leaned half out the window as the red roadster shot thunderously across the rustic bridge and brought up sharply on the driveway below.

With a shouted greeting she brought the driver's red-blonde head to attention.

"Hullo--where's the Bob?"

Johnny grinned. "Trying to ride one horse and lead another. Sweet mount he's bringing you, Ruth. Didn't like the way I pa.s.sed him. Bet you he throws you."

"Bet you he doesn't."

"You lose. . . . Where's the little Wop?"

"You mean Maria Angelina Santonini?"

"Gosh, is that all? Well, you scoot across to her room and tell Maria Angelina Santonini that she has a perfectly good date with me."

"She powdered her nose and went down stairs an hour ago," Ruth sang down, just as a small figure emerged from the music room upon the veranda and approached the rail.

"The little Wop is here, Signor," said Maria Angelina lightly.

Unabashed Johnny Byrd beamed at her. It was a perfectly good sensation, each time, to see her. One grew to suspect, between times, that anything so enchanting didn't really exist--and then, suddenly, there she was, like a conjurer's trick, every lovely young line of her.

Johnny knew girls. He knew them, he would have informed you, backwards and forwards. And he liked girls--devilish cunning games, with the same old trumps up their sleeves--when they wore 'em--but this girl was just puzzlingly different enough to evoke a curiously haunting wonder.

Was it the difference in environment? Or in herself? He couldn't quite make her out.

He seemed to be groping for some clew, some familiar sign that would resolve all the unfamiliarities to old acquaintance.

Meanwhile he continued to smile cheerily at the young person he had so rudely designated as a little Wop and gestured to the seat beside him.

"Hop in," he admonished. "Let us be off before that horse comes and steps on me. That's a dear girl."

But Maria Angelina shook her dark head.

"I told you, no, Signor, I could not go. In my country one does not ride with young men."

"But you are in my country now. And in my country one jolly well rides with young men."