Johnny wanted to put his hands out and touch them. And he wanted to grip the small shoulders beneath that middy blouse and shake them out of that aloof perverseness . . . they had been such soft, nestling shoulders last night. . . .
"You know I—I'm really crazy about you," he said quickly. "Of course you know it—you had a right to know it. I was gone on you from the moment I first saw you. You were so—different. I thought it was just a crush—that I could take it or leave it, you know—but you are different. A man's just got to have you——"
He waited. He had an idea that he had elucidated something. He felt that he had raised an issue. But Maria Angelina stood like the bright eternal snow, unhearing and unheeding and most devilishly cold.
"Only last night," said Johnny, explaining feverishly again, "you were so funny and grand opera and all and I was mad and disgusted and grouchy and I—I didn't know how much I cared myself. Look here, forget it, will you, and begin again?"
"Begin what again?"
"Well, don't begin, then. Let's finish. Let's get married. I do want you, Ri-Ri—I want you like the very deuce. After you had gone—Gee, it was an awful night when I got over my mad. And coming down the mountain this morning—I didn't know what I was going to find! . . . So let's forget it all—and get married," he repeated.
There was a pause. "Do you mean this?" said a still voice.
"Every word. That's what I was planning to tell you when I was running down the mountain this morning. . . . And last night—if you'd gone at me differently."
He looked at her. Something in that young figure made him say quickly, "Will you, Ri-Ri?"
"I should like you," said Maria Angelina in a clear implacable little voice, "to say that again, Signor Byrd, if you are in earnest."