She leaned half out the window as the red roadster shot thunderously across the rustic bridge and brought up sharply on the driveway below. With a shouted greeting she brought the driver's red-blonde head to attention.
"Hullo—where's the Bob?"
Johnny grinned. "Trying to ride one horse and lead another. Sweet mount he's bringing you, Ruth. Didn't like the way I passed him. Bet you he throws you."
"Bet you he doesn't."
"You lose. . . . Where's the little Wop?"
"You mean Maria Angelina Santonini?"
"Gosh, is that all? Well, you scoot across to her room and tell Maria Angelina Santonini that she has a perfectly good date with me."
"She powdered her nose and went down stairs an hour ago," Ruth sang down, just as a small figure emerged from the music room upon the veranda and approached the rail.
"The little Wop is here, Signor," said Maria Angelina lightly.
Unabashed Johnny Byrd beamed at her. It was a perfectly good sensation, each time, to see her. One grew to suspect, between times, that anything so enchanting didn't really exist—and then, suddenly, there she was, like a conjurer's trick, every lovely young line of her.