"In your country--but for a time, yes." Unconvinced Maria Angelina stood by her rail, like the boy upon the burning deck.
"But your aunt--cousin, I mean--would let you," he argued. "I"ll shout up now and see----"
Unrelentingly, "It is not my cousin, but my mother who would object,"
she informed him.
"Holy Saint Cecilia! You"re worse than boarding school. Come on, Maria Angelina--I"ll promise not to kiss you."
That was one of Johnny"s best lines. It always had a deal of effect--one way or another. It startled Maria Angelina. Her eyes opened as if he had set off a rocket--and something very bright and light, like the impish reflections of that rocket, danced a moment in her look.
"I will write that promise to my mother and see if it persuades her,"
she informed him.
"Oh, all right, all right."
With the sigh of the defeated Johnny Byrd turned off the gas and climbed out of his car.
"Just for that the promise is off," he announced. "Do you think your mother would mind letting you sit in the same room with me and teach me that song you promised?"
"She would mind very much in Italy." Over her shoulder Maria cast a laughing look at him as she stepped back into the music room. "There I would never be alone like this."
Incredulously Johnny stared past her into the music room. Through the windows upon the other side came the voices of bridge players upon the veranda without. Through those same windows were visible the bridge players" heads. Other windows opened upon the veranda in the front of the Lodge from which they had just come. An arch of doorway gave upon the wide hall where a guest was shuffling the mail.
"_Alone!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Johnny.
"My mother allows this when my sister Lucia and her fiance, Paolo Tosti, are together," said Maria Angelina. "I am in the next room with a book.
And that is very advanced. It is because Mamma is American."
"I"ll say it"s advanced," Johnny muttered. "You mean--you mean your sister and that--that toasted one she"s engaged to have never really seen each other----?"
"Oh, they have _seen_ each other----"
"The poor fish," said Johnny heavily. He glanced with increasing curiosity at the young girl by his side. . . . After all, this _jeune fille_ thing might be true. . . .
"Well, I"m glad your mother was American," he declared, beginning to strum upon the piano and inviting her to a seat beside him.
But Maria Angelina remained looking through her music.
"Then I am only half a Wop," said she. She added, bright mischief between her long lashes, "What is it then--a Wop?"
Johnny Byrd, striking random chords, looked up at her.
"What is it?" he repeated. "I"ll say that depends. . . . Sometimes it"s dark and greasy and throws bombs. . . . Sometimes it"s bad and glad and sings Carmen. . . . And sometimes it"s--it"s----"
Deliberately he stared at the small braid-bound head, the shadowy dark of the eyes, the scarlet curve of the small mouth.
"Sometimes it"s just the prettiest, youngest----"
"I am _not_ so young," said Maria Angelina indignantly.
"Lordy, you"re a babe in arms."
"I am _not_." Her defiance was furious. It had a twinge of terror--terror lest they treat her everlastingly as child.
"I am eighteen. I am but a year and three months younger than Ruth."
"She"s a kid," grinned Johnny.
"The Signor Bob Martin does not think so!"
"The Signor Bob Martin is nuts on that particular kid. And he"s a kid himself."
"And do you think that you are----?"
"Sure. We"re all kids together. Why not? I like it," declared young Byrd.
But Maria Angelina was not appeased. She had half glimpsed that indefinite irresponsibility of these strangers which treated youth as a toy, an experiment. . . .
"And is the Signorina Leila Grey," said she suddenly, "is she, also, a kid?"
Roundly Johnny opened his eyes. His face presented a curious stolidity of look, as if a protection against some unforeseen attack. At the same time it was streaked with humor.
"Now where," said he, "did you get that?"
"Is she," the girl persisted, "is she also a kid?"
"The Signorina Leila Grey? No," conceded Johnny, "the Signorina Leila Grey was born with her wisdom teeth cut. . . . At that she hasn"t found so much to chew on," he murmured cheerily.
The girl"s eyes were bright with divinations. "You mean that she did not--did not find your friend Bob something to chew upon?"
Johnny"s laugh was a guffaw. It rang startlingly in that quiet room.
"You"re there, Ri-Ri--absolutely there," he vowed. "But where, I wonder----" He broke off. His look held both surmise and a shrewd suspicion.
"I--guessed," said Maria Angelina hastily. "And I saw her the first evening in New York. . . . She is very beautiful."
"She"s a wonder," he admitted heartily. "Yes--and I"ll say Bob nearly fell for her. If she"d been expert enough she could have gathered him in. He just dodged in time--and now he"s busy forgetting he ever knew her."
"Perhaps," slowly puzzled out Maria Angelina, "perhaps the reason that she was not--not expert, as you say--was because her attention was just a little--wandering."
Johnny yawned. "Often happens." He struck a few chords. "Where"s that little song of yours--the one you were going to teach me? I could do something with that at the next show at the club."
"If you will let me sit down, Signor----"
"I"m not crabbing the bench."
"But I wish the place in the center."
"What you "fraid of, Ri-Ri?" Obligingly Johnny moved over. "Why, you have me tied hand and foot. I"m afraid to move a muscle for fear you"ll tell me it isn"t done--in Italy."