"Right you are. That is it, Signorina," Barry Elder agreed very promptly. "That's the way it would look in America. Being lost is an unpleasant accident. Nothing more—between young people of good family. Not that young people of good families make a practice of being lost," he supplemented, his eyes dancing in spite of himself at Maria Angelina's deepening amaze, "but when anything like that happens—as it has before this in the Adirondacks—people don't start an ugly scandal. They may talk a little of course, but it won't do you any real harm. . . . And it wouldn't be quite nice for Johnny to go rushing about offering you marriage. The occasion doesn't demand it in the least."
Helplessly she regarded him. . . . She felt utterly astray—astray and blundering. . . .
"Would Cousin Jane think so?" she appealed.
"She would," averred Barry stoutly, over the twinge of an inner qualm. "And so would your own mother, if she were here."
But there Maria Angelina was on solid ground.
"You know little about that," she told him with spirit. "If I were lost in Italy——"
But it was so impossible, being lost in Italy, that Maria Angelina could only break off and guard a bewildered silence.
"Then I expect your mother had better not know," was all the counsel that Barry Elder could offer, realizing doubtfully that it was far from a counsel of perfection. "You had better let that depend upon Mrs. Blair."
"I tried to tell her all this," Johnny broke in with an accent of triumph.
But Maria Angelina was looking only at Barry Elder.