"Why can't we stay?"
"It—it is impossible! The scandal——"
Angrily he wheeled about. "Scandal?" he said sharply. "What the hell scandal is there?"
His indignation at the words could not dispel her terror. But it was something to have him so hot her champion.
"You know, they will all talk——"
"Let 'em talk," he said curtly. "We can't help it."
She put a hand to her throat as if to still that throbbing pulse there that impeded speech.
"I know we cannot help it. But we cannot—not give them so much to talk of. We can be trying to return——"
"Don't be a goose, Ri-Ri!" he broke in sharply.
He was a man. He did not understand the full agony. . . . Desperately Maria Angelina wondered as to her reception. She had no parallel in Italian society. The thing could not happen in Italian society. A girl, a well born girl, rambling the woods all night with her fiancé!