With the ending of the song she called down pleasantly to the three young men. “Thank you for your beautiful singing. I think ‘The Stars’ is the sweetest song you sang.”
“We are happy to have pleased you, hermosa (beautiful) señorita. It is the song we also like best.” Ricardo added something daringly respectful to Ronny in Spanish. She laughingly translated his speech as the three dark figures strode away across the lawn. “Ricardo says that you are the most beautiful young lady he has ever seen.”
“Oh, bother.” Marjorie’s tone was half vexed. “I wish I had a pug nose and freckles. No. I’m glad I haven’t them.” She turned the subject abruptly with: “I should not have understood the beauty of those songs last year as I do now. Love has opened a new, wonderful world to me.”
“And this is hard-hearted Marjorie Dean to whom I’m listening,” Ronny said in a tone of light incredulity. Candidly she added: “I know how you feel about love. I feel so about it now. I see nothing deeper in Ricardo’s songs than beauty of voice and unconscious expression. Teresa says Ricardo has never been in love. His brothers are young boys of only twelve and fourteen. But the Spanish Mexicans have emotion in their voices when they are mere babies.”
“Have you ever known a young man you thought you cared a little for?” Marjorie asked half curiously. She could not recall in her several years of friendship with Ronny that her brilliant talented friend had ever accorded more than careless attention to a young man of her acquaintance.
“No, I have not, and I don’t wish to,” Ronny replied with considerable emphasis. “I never expect to meet any such person. I couldn’t fall in love if I tried.”
“That’s what I used to think.” Marjorie held up a warning hand. “Be careful,” she continued, laughing softly. “The moment when you are the most certain that you can never fall in love may be the signal for a change in your destiny. You may never fall in love. You may just tumble into it someday without a sign or word of warning.”
CHAPTER V.
ON THE SPEEDWELL
“I’ve always tried my hardest to get whatever I wanted for myself no matter how much trouble I made for other people in the getting. Now here I am, caught in a snare. What’s hardest of all to bear, Marjorie, is having hurt Peter the Great. Because I behaved like a vandal at Hamilton he’s ashamed in his heart to come back to Carden Hedge to live the year round.”