Maria Angelina's eyes were shining, and the smooth oval of her cheeks had deepened from poppy pink to poppy rose. She was dancing in a dream, a golden dream . . . incredibly, ecstatically happy. . . . She was in a confusion of young delight in which the extravagance of his words, the light of his glances, the thrill of the violins were inextricably involved in gayety and glamour.
And then suddenly the dance was over, and he was returning her to her cousins. And he was saying good-by.
"I have a table yonder—although I appear to have forsaken it," he was explaining. "Don't forget your first American, Signorina—I'm sorry you are going to-morrow, but perhaps I shall be seeing you in the Adirondacks before very long."
He gave Maria Angelina a directly smiling glance whose boldness made her shiver.
Then he turned to Mrs. Blair. "You know my uncle had a little shack built on Old Chief Mountain—not so far from you at Wilderness. I always like to run up there——"
"Oh, no, you won't, Barry," said Mrs. Blair, laughing incomprehensibly. "You'll be running where the breaking waves dash high, on a stern and rock-bound coast."
He met the sally with answering laughter a trifle forced.
"I'm flattered you think me so constant! But you underestimate the charms of novelty. . . . If I should meet, say, a petite brune, done in cotton wool and dewy with innocence——"
"You're incorrigible," vowed the lady. "I have no faith in you!"
"Not even in my incorrigibility?"