"You see!" Johnny waved his hand helplessly at her and looked appealingly at Barry for a gleam of masculine right-mindedness. "She—she wanted me to stay out in the rain, Barry."
"But as it was, she stayed out in the rain and you slept in the shelter."
"She ran, I'm telling you. I couldn't chase her forever, could I? I tried to track her as soon as it got a little light and I could see where she'd been sliding and slipping along, and honestly, I've been nearly bats with worry till I got a trace of her again back in the woods."
Barry Elder turned towards the girl.
"And that's the whole story, Signorina? That's all there is to it?"
"All?" Maria Angelina echoed bewilderedly. She thought there was enough and to spare. It seemed to her that she had related the destruction of her lifetime.
She stopped. She would not cry again before Johnny Byrd. She called on all her pride to keep her firm before him.
A queer change came over Barry Elder's expression. The light that seemed to be shining in the back of his eyes was bright again. He looked at Maria Angelina in a thoughtful silence, then he turned to Johnny Byrd.
"I don't think you know how serious a business this is in Italy," he told him. "You know, there where a girl cannot even see a man alone——"
"Well, we don't need to cable it to Italy, do we?" Johnny demanded in disgust. "It isn't going to spill any beans here. But it would look fine, wouldn't it, if I came back to the Lodge yelling to marry her?"