The Innocent Adventuress

by Mary Hastings Bradley

  CHAPTER V

  BETWEEN DANCES

  There had been distinct proprietorship in Johnny's reference to thedance, a hint of possessive admonition, a shade of anxiety to whichMaria Angelina was not insensitive.

  He wanted her to excel. His pride was calling, unconsciously, upon her,to justify his choice. The dance was an exhibition . . . competition. Itwas the open market . . . appraisal. . . .

  No matter how charming she might be in the motor rides with the four,how pretty and piquant in the afternoon at the piano, how melodious inthe evenings upon the steps, the full measure of his admiration was notexacted.

  Sagely she surmised this. Anxiously she awaited the event.

  It was her first real dance. It was her first American affair. Casually,in the evenings at the Lodge, they had danced to the phonograph and shehad been initiated into new steps and amazed at the manner of them, butthere had been nothing of the slightest formality.

  Now the Martins were entertaining over the week-end, and giving a danceto which the neighborhood--meaning the neighborhood of the Martins'acquaintance--was assembling.

  And again Maria Angelina felt the inrush of fear, the overwhelmingtimidity of inexperience held at bay by pride alone . . . again she knewthe tormenting question which she had confronted in that dim old glassat the Palazzo Santonini on the day when she had heard of the adventurebefore her.

  She asked it that night of a different glass, the big, built-in mirrorof the dressing-room at the Martins given over to the ladies--a mirrorthat was a dissolving kaleidoscope of color and motion, of brightsilks, bare shoulders and white arms, of pink cheeks, red lips andshining hair.

  Advancing shyly among the young girls, filled with divided wonder attheir self-possession and their extreme decolletage, Ri-Ri gazed at theglass timidly, determinedly, fatefully, as one approaches an oracle, andout from the glittering surface was flung back to her a radiant image ofreassurance--a vision of a slim figure in filmiest white, slender armsand shoulders bare, dark hair not braided now, but piled high upon herhead--a revelation of a nape of neck as young and kissable as a baby'sand yet an addition of bewildering years to her immaturity.

  To-night she was glad of the white skin, that was a gift from Mamma. Thewhite coral string, against the satin softness of her throat, revealedits opalescent flush. She was immaculate, exquisite, like some figurineof fancy--an image of youth as sweet and innocently troubling as a Maynight.

  "You're a love," said Ruth heartily, appearing at her side, verystunning herself in jade green, with her smooth hair a miracle ofshining perfection.

  "And you're--different," added Ruth in a slightly puzzled voice, lookingher small cousin over with the thoroughness of an inventory. "It must bethe hair, Ri-Ri. . . . You've lost that little Saint Susy air."

  "But there is no Saint Susy," Ri-Ri interposed gayly, lightly fingeringthe dark curves of her hair.

  Truly--for Johnny--she had done her darndest! Surely he would bepleased.

  "If you'd only let me cut that lower--you're simply swaddled intulle----"

  Startled, Maria glanced down at the hollows of her young bosom, at thescantiness of her bodice suspended only by bands of sheerest gauze. Shewondered what Mamma would say, if she could see her so, without thatdrape of net. . . .

  "You have the duckiest shoulder blades," said Ruth.

  "Oh--do _they_ show?" cried Maria Angelina in dismay. She twisted for aview and the movement drew Ruth's glance along her lithe figure.

  "We ought to have cut two inches more off," she declared, and nowRi-Ri's glance fled down to the satin slippers with their crossedribbons, to the narrow, silken ankles, to the slender legs above theankles. It seemed to her an utterly limitless exhibition. And Ruth wasproposing two more inches!

  Apprehensively she glanced about to make sure that no scissors were inprospect.

  "But you'll do," Ruth pronounced, and in relief Maria Angelinarelinquished the center of the mirror, and slipped out into the gallerythat ran around three sides of the house.

  It was built like a chalet, but Maria Angelina had seen no such chaletin her childish summers in Switzerland. Over the edge of the rail shegazed into the huge hall, cleared now for dancing. The furniture hadbeen pushed back beneath the gallery where it was arranged in intimatelittle groups for future tete-a-tetes, except a few lounging chairs lefton the black bear-skins by the chimney-piece. In one corner a screen ofpine boughs and daisies shut off the musicians from the streets, and inthe opposite corner an English man-servant was presiding over a hugesilver punch bowl.

  To Maria Angelina, accustomed to Italian interiors, the note wasbuoyantly informal. And the luxury of service in this informality was apiquant contrast. . . . No one seemed to care what anything cost. . . .They gave dances in a log chalet and sent to New York for the favors andto California for the fruit. . . . Into the huge punch-bowl they pouredwine of a value now incredible, since the supply could never bereplenished. . . .

  Very different would be Lucia's wedding party in the Palazzo Santonini,on that marvelous old service that Pietro polished but three times ayear, with every morsel of refreshment arranged and calculatedbeforehand.

  What miracles of economy would be performed in that stone-flaggedkitchen, many of them by Mamma's own hands! Suddenly Maria Angelinafound a moment to wonder afresh at that mother . . . and with a newvision. . . . For Mamma had come from this profusion.

  "They have a regular place at Newport." Ruth was concluding some unheardspeech behind her. "But they like this better. . . . This is the life,"and with a just faintly discernible note of proprietorship in her airshe was off down the stairs.

  "Didn't they find Newport rather chilly?" murmured the girl to whom shehad been talking. "Wasn't Mrs. M. a Smith or a Brown-Jones orsomething----?"

  "It was something in butterine," said another guest negligently andswore, softly and intensely, at a shoulder strap. "Oh, _damn_ thething! . . . Well--flop if you want to. I've got nothing to hide."

  "You know why girls hide their ears, don't you?" said the other voice,and the second girl flung wearily back, "Oh, so they can have somethingto show their husbands--I heard that in my cradle!"

  "It _is_ rather old," its sponsor acknowledged wittily, and the pairwent clattering on.

  Had America, Maria Angelina wondered, been like this in her mother'syouth? Was it from such speeches that her mother had turned, inhelplessness or distaste, to the delicate implications, the finishedinnuendo of the Italian world?

  Or had times changed? Were these girls truly different from theirmothers? Was it a new society?

  That was it, she concluded, and she, in her old-world seclusion, was ofanother era from these assured ones. . . . Again, for a moment the doubtof her capacity to cope with these times assailed her, but only for amoment, for next instant she caught Johnny Byrd's upturned glance fromthe floor below and in its flash of admiration, as unstinted as a sunbath, her confidence drew reanimation.

  Later, she found that same warmth in other men's eyes and in theeagerness with which they kept cutting in.

  That cutting in, itself, was strange to her. It filled her with aterrifying perspective of what would happen if she were _not_ cut inupon--if she were left to gyrate endlessly in the arms of some lucklessone, eternally stuck. . . .

  At home, at a ball, she knew that there were fixed dances, and programs,in which engagements were jotted definitely down, and at each dance'send a girl was returned respectfully to her chaperon where the nextpartner called for her. Often she had scanned Lucia's scrawled programsfor the names there.

  But none of that now.

  Up and down the hall she sped in some man's arms, round and round, upand down, until another man, agile, dexterous, shot between the couplesand claimed her. And then up and down again until some other man. . . .And sometimes they went back to rest in the intimately arranged chairsbeneath the balcony, and sometimes stepped out of doors to saunter alonga wide terrace.

  It was incredibly independent. It was intoxicati
ngly free. It was alsoterrifyingly responsible.

  And Maria Angelina, in her young fear of unpopularity, smiled soingenuously upon each arrival, with a shy, backward deprecatory glanceat her lost partner, that she stirred something new and wondering ineach seasoned breast, and each dancer came again and again.

  But all of them, the new young men from town, the tennis champion fromYale, the polo player from England, the lawyer from Washington, thestout widower, the professional bachelor, all were only moving shapesthat came and went and came again and by their tribute made hersuccessful in Johnny's eyes.

  Indeed, so well did they do their work that Johnny was moved to brusqueexpostulation.

  "Look here, Ri-Ri, I told you this was to be _my_ dance! With all thoseoutsiders cutting in--Freeze them, Ri-Ri. Try a long, hard level look onthe next one you see making your way. . . . Don't you _want_ to dancewith me, any more? Huh? Where's that stand-in of mine? Is it a little,old last year's model?"

  "But what am I to do----?"

  "Fight 'em off. Bite 'em. Kick their shins. . . . Oh, Lord," groanedJohnny, dexterously whirling her about, "there's another coming. . . .Here's where we go. This way out."

  Speedily he piloted her through the throng. Masterfully he caught herarm and drew her out of doors.

  She was glad to be out of the dance. His clasp had been growing toopersonal . . . too tight. . . . Perhaps she was only oddlyself-conscious . . . incapable of the serene detachment of those otherdancers, who, yielding and intertwined, revolved in intimate harmony.

  There was a moon. It shone soft and bright upon them, making a world ofenchantment. The long lines of the mountains melted together like aviolet cloud and above them a round top floated, pale and dreamy, as thedome of Saint Peter's at twilight.

  From the terrace stretched a grassy path where other couples werestrolling and Johnny Byrd guided her past them. They walked in silence.He kept his hand on her arm and from time to time glanced about at herin a half-constraint that was no part of his usual air.

  At a curve of the path the girl drew definitely back.

  "Ah no----"

  "Oh, why not? Isn't it the custom?" He laughed over the often-citedphrase but absently. His eyes had a warm, hurrying look in them thatrooted her feet the more stubbornly to the ground.

  "Decidedly not." She turned a merriment lighted face to him. "To walkalone with a young man--between dances--beneath the moon!"

  Maria Angelina shuddered and cast impish eyes at heaven.

  "Honestly?" Johnny demanded. "Do you mean to tell me you've never walkedbetween dances with young men?"

  "I tell you that I have never even danced with a young man until----"She flashed away from that memory. "Until I came to America. I am notyet in Italian society. I have never been presented. It is not yet mytime."

  "But--but don't the sub debs have any good times over there? Don't youhave dances of your own? Don't you meet fellows? Don't you knowanybody?" Johnny demanded with increasing amazement at each new shake ofher head.

  "Oh, come," he protested. "You can't put that over me. I'll bet you'vegot a bagful of fellows crazy about you. Don't you ever slip out on anerrand, you know, and find some one waiting round the corner----?"

  "You are speaking of the customs of my maid, perhaps," said MariaAngelina with becoming young haughtiness. "For myself, I do not go uponerrands. I have never been upon the streets alone."

  Johnny Byrd stared. With a supreme effort of credulity he envisaged thefact. Perhaps it was really so. Perhaps she was just as sequestered andguileless and inexperienced as that. It was ridiculous. It was amusing.It was--somehow--intriguing.

  With his hand upon her bare arm he drew her closer.

  "Ri-Ri--honest now--is this the first----?"

  She drew away instinctively before the suppressed excitement of him. Herheart beat fast; her hands were very cold. She knew elation . . . andpanic . . . and dread and hope.

  It was for this she had come. Young and rich and free! What more wouldMamma ask? What greater triumph could be hers?

  "I'd like to make a lot of other things the first, too," mutteredJohnny.

  To Ri-Ri it seemed irrevocable things were being said. But she stillheld lightly away from him, resisting the clumsy pull of his arm. Hehesitated--laughed oddly.

  "It ought to be against the law for any girl to look the way you do,Ri-Ri." He laughed again. "I wonder if you know how the deuce you _do_look?"

  "Perhaps it is the moonlight, Signor."

  "Moonlight--you look as if you were made of it. . . . I could eat youup, Ri-Ri." His eyes on her red little mouth, on her white, beatingthroat. His voice had an odd, husky note.

  "Don't be such a little frost, Ri-Ri. Don't you like me at all?"

  It was the dream coming true. It was the fairy prince--not the falsefigure she had set in the prince's place, but a proud revenge upon him.This was reality, fulfillment.

  She saw herself already married to Johnny, returning proudly with himto Italy. She saw them driving in a victoria, openly as man and wife--orno, Johnny would have a wonderful car, all metal and bright color. Theywould be magnificently touring, with their luggage strapped on the side,as she had seen Americans.

  She saw them turning into the sombre courtway of the old PalazzoSantonini and, so surely had she been attuned to the American note, shecould presage Johnny's blunt disparagement. He would be astonished thatthey were living upon the third floor--with the lower apartment let. Hewould be amused at the servants toiling up the stairs from the kitchensto the dining hall. He would be entertained at the solitary tub. Hewould be disgusted, undoubtedly, at the candles. . . .

  But of course Mamma would have everything very beautiful. There would beno lack of candles. . . . The chandeliers would be sparkling for thatdinner. There would be delicious food, delicate wines, an abundantgleam of shining plate and crystal and embroidered linens.

  And how Lucia would stare, how dear Julietta would smile! She would buyJulietta the prettiest clothes, the cleverest hats. . . . She would givedear Mamma gold--something that neither dear Papa nor Francisco knewabout--and to dear Papa and Francisco she would give, too, a littlegold--something that dear Mamma did not know about.

  For once Papa could have something for his play that was not a roastfrom his kitchen nor clothes from his daughters' backs nor oats from hishorses!

  Probably they would be married at once. Johnny was free and rich--andimpatient. She did not suspect him of interest in a long wooing orbetrothal. . . . And while she must appear to be in favor of a returnhome, first, and a marriage from her home, the American ceremony wouldcut many knots for her--save much expense at home. . . .

  She saw herself proudly exhibiting Johnny, delighting in his youth, hisblonde Americanism, his smartly cut clothes, his conqueror's assurance.

  Meanwhile Maria Angelina was still standing there in the moonlight, likea little wraith of silver, smiling with absent eyes at Johnny's mutteredwords, withdrawing, in childish panic, from Johnny's close pressingardor. She knew that if he persisted . . . but before her softdetachment, her half laughing evasiveness of his mood, he did notpersist. He seemed oddly struggling with some withholding uncertaintiesof his own.

  "Oh, well, if that's all you like me," said Johnny grumpily.

  It was reprieve . . . reprieve to the irrevocable things. Her heartdanced . . . and yet a piqued resentment pinched her.

  He had been able to resist.

  She knew subtly that she could have overcome that irresolution. . . .But she was not going to make things too easy for him--her Santoninipride forbade!

  "We must go back," she told him and exulted in his moodiness.

  And for the rest of the evening his arm pressed her, his eyes smileddown significantly upon her, and when she confronted the great mirroragain it was to glimpse a girl with darkly shining eyes and cheeks likescarlet poppies, a girl in white, like a bride, and with a bride's highpride and assured heart.

  She slept, that night, composing the letter to dear Mamma.
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