It would have taken a hard heart to wish her otherwise.
"It's very pretty," said Cousin Jane in quick reassurance.
"Too pretty, s'all," said Cousin Ruth. "But it won't be wasted. . . . Bobby Martin is staying to luncheon," she flung casually at her parents. "Has a guest with him. You remember Johnny Byrd."
American freedom, indeed! thought Maria Angelina following down the slippery stairs into the wide hall below where, in a boulder fireplace that was surmounted by a stag's head, a small blaze was flickering despite the warmth of the day.
Wasteful, thought Maria Angelina reprovingly. One could see that the Americans had never suffered for fuel. . . .
Upon a huge, black fur rug before the fire two young men were waiting.
Demurely Maria thought of the letter she would write home that night—one young man the first evening in New York, two young men the first luncheon at the Lodge. Decidedly, America brimmed with young men!
Meanwhile, Ruth was presenting them. The big dark youth, heavy and lazy moving, was the Signor Bob Martin.
The other, Johnny Byrd, was shorter and broad of shoulder; he had reddish blonde hair slightly parted and brushed straight back; he had a short nose with freckles and blue eyes with light lashes. When he laughed—and he seemed always laughing—he showed splendid teeth.
Both young men stared—but staring was a man's prerogative in Italy and Maria Angelina was unperturbed. At table she sat serenely, her dark lashes shading the oval of her cheeks, while the young men's eyes—and one pair of them, especially—took in the black, braid-bound head and the small, Madonna-like face, faintly flushed by sun and wind, above the golden glow of the sheer frock.