"One must invest to receive," she insisted; and when he grumbled, "But to lose the child?" she broke out, "Am I not losing her?" on a note that silenced him.
Then she added cheerfully, "But it will be for her own good."
"You want her to marry an American? You are not satisfied, then, with Italians?" said Papa playfully leaning over to ruffle Mamma's soft, light hair and at his movement Maria Angelina fled swiftly from those curtains back to her post, and sat very still, a book in front of her, a haze of romance swimming between it and her startled eyes.
America. . . . A rich husband. . . . Travel. . . . Adventure. . . . The unknown. . . .
It was wonderful. It was unbelievable. . . . It was desperate.
It was a hazard of the sharpest chance.
That knowledge brought a chill of gravity into the hot currents of her beating heart—a chill that was the cold breath of a terrific responsibility. She felt herself the hope, the sole resource of her family. She was the die on which their throw of fortune was to be cast.
Dropping her book she slid down from her chair and crossed to a long mirror in an old carved frame where a dove was struggling in a falcon's talons while Cupids drew vain bows, and in the dimmed glass stared in passionate searching.
She was so childish, so slight looking. She was white—that was the skin from Mamma—and now she wondered if it were truly a charm. Certainly Lucia preferred her own olive tints.
And her eyes were so big and dark, like caverns in her face, and her lips were mere scarlet threads. The beauties she had seen were warm-colored, high-bosomed, full-lipped.