The Innocent Adventuress

AUTHOR OF THE FORTIETH DOOR, THE PALACE OF DARKENED WINDOWS, THE WINE OF ASTONISHMENT, THE SPLENDID CHANCE, ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Copyright, 1920, by The McCall Co., Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY SISTER SYLVIA CORWIN FRANCISCO

Maria Angelina was eavesdropping. Not upon her sister Lucia and Paolo Tosti whom she had been assigned to chaperon by reading a book to herself in the adjoining room—no, they were safely busy with piano and violin, and she was heartily bored, anyway, with their inanities. Voices from another direction had pricked her to alertness.
Maria Angelina was in the corner room of the Palazzo Santonini, a dim and beautiful old library with faded furnishings whose west arch of doorway looked into the pretentious reception room where the fiancés were amusing themselves with their music and their whisper ings. It was quite advanced, this allowing them to be so alone, but the Contessa Santonini was an American and, moreover, the wedding was not far off.
One can be indulgent when the settlements are signed.
So only Maria Angelina and her book were stationed for propriety, and, wanting another book, she had gone to the shelves and through the north door, ajar, caught the words that held her intent.
Three of them! a masculine voice uttered explosively, and Maria knew that Papa was speaking of his three daughters, Lucia, Julietta and Maria Angelina—and she knew, too, that Papa had just come from the last interview with the Tostis' lawyers.
The Tostis had been stiff in their demands and Papa had been more complaisant than he should have been. Altogether that marriage was costing him dear.
He had been figuring now with Mamma for a pencil went clattering to the floor.
And something especial, he proclaimed bitterly, will have to be done for Julietta!