It was the dream coming true. It was the fairy prince--not the false figure she had set in the prince's place, but a proud revenge upon him.

This was reality, fulfillment.

She saw herself already married to Johnny, returning proudly with him to Italy. She saw them driving in a victoria, openly as man and wife--or no, Johnny would have a wonderful car, all metal and bright color. They would be magnificently touring, with their luggage strapped on the side, as she had seen Americans.

She saw them turning into the sombre courtway of the old Palazzo Santonini and, so surely had she been attuned to the American note, she could presage Johnny's blunt disparagement. He would be astonished that they were living upon the third floor--with the lower apartment let. He would be amused at the servants toiling up the stairs from the kitchens to the dining hall. He would be entertained at the solitary tub. He would be disgusted, undoubtedly, at the candles. . . .

But of course Mamma would have everything very beautiful. There would be no lack of candles. . . . The chandeliers would be sparkling for that dinner. There would be delicious food, delicate wines, an abundant gleam of shining plate and crystal and embroidered linens.

And how Lucia would stare, how dear Julietta would smile! She would buy Julietta the prettiest clothes, the cleverest hats. . . . She would give dear Mamma gold--something that neither dear Papa nor Francisco knew about--and to dear Papa and Francisco she would give, too, a little gold--something that dear Mamma did not know about.

For once Papa could have something for his play that was not a roast from his kitchen nor clothes from his daughters' backs nor oats from his horses!

Probably they would be married at once. Johnny was free and rich--and impatient. She did not suspect him of interest in a long wooing or betrothal. . . . And while she must appear to be in favor of a return home, first, and a marriage from her home, the American ceremony would cut many knots for her--save much expense at home. . . .

She saw herself proudly exhibiting Johnny, delighting in his youth, his blonde Americanism, his smartly cut clothes, his conqueror's a.s.surance.

Meanwhile Maria Angelina was still standing there in the moonlight, like a little wraith of silver, smiling with absent eyes at Johnny's muttered words, withdrawing, in childish panic, from Johnny's close pressing ardor. She knew that if he persisted . . . but before her soft detachment, her half laughing evasiveness of his mood, he did not persist. He seemed oddly struggling with some withholding uncertainties of his own.

"Oh, well, if that's all you like me," said Johnny grumpily.

It was reprieve . . . reprieve to the irrevocable things. Her heart danced . . . and yet a piqued resentment pinched her.

He had been able to resist.

She knew subtly that she could have overcome that irresolution. . . .

But she was not going to make things too easy for him--her Santonini pride forbade!

"We must go back," she told him and exulted in his moodiness.

And for the rest of the evening his arm pressed her, his eyes smiled down significantly upon her, and when she confronted the great mirror again it was to glimpse a girl with darkly shining eyes and cheeks like scarlet poppies, a girl in white, like a bride, and with a bride's high pride and a.s.sured heart.

She slept, that night, composing the letter to dear Mamma.

CHAPTER VI

TWO--AND A MOUNTAIN

The next morning was given to recovery from the dance. In the afternoon the Martins had planned a mountain climb. It was not a really bad mountain, at all, and the arrangement was to start in the late afternoon, have dinner upon the top, and descend by moonlight.

It was the plan of the younger inexhaustibles among the group, but in spite of faint protests from some of the elders all the Martin house-party was in line for the climb, and with the addition of the Blair party and several other couples from the Lodge, quite a procession was formed upon the path by the river.

It was a lovely day--a shade too hot, if anything was to be urged against it. The sun struck great shafts of golden light amid the rich green of the forest, splashing the great tree boles with bold light and shade. The air was fragrant with spruce and pine and faint, aromatic wintergreen. A hot little wind rocked the reflections in the river and blew its wimpling surface into crinkled, lace-paper fantasies.

Overhead the sky burned blue through the white-cottonb.a.l.l.s of cloud.

Bob Martin headed the procession, Ruth at his side, and the stout widower concluded it, squiring a rather heavy-footed Mrs. Martin. Midway in the line came Mrs. Blair, and beside her, abandoning the line of young people behind the immediate leaders was a small figure in short white skirt and middy, pressing closely to her Cousin Jane's side.

It was Maria Angelina, her dark hair braided as usual about her head, her eyes a shade downcast and self-conscious, withdrawn and tight-wrapped as any prudish young bud.

But if virginal pride had urged her to flee all appearance of expectation, an equally sharp masculine reaction was withholding Johnny Byrd from any appearance of pursuit.

He went from group to group, clowning it with jokes and laughter, and only from the corners of his eyes perceiving that small figure, like a child's in its white play clothes.

For half an hour that separation endured--a half hour in which Cousin Jane told Maria Angelina all about her first mountain climb, when a girl, and the storm that had driven herself and her sister and her father and the guide to sleep in the only shelter, and of the guide's snores that were louder than the thunder--and Maria Angelina laughed somehow in the right places without taking in a word, for all the time apprehension was tightening, tightening like a violin string about to snap.

And then, when it was drawn so tight that it did not seem possible to endure any more, Johnny Byrd appeared at Ri-Ri's side, conscious-eyed and boyishly embarra.s.sed, but managing an offhand smile.

"And is this the very first mountain you've ever climbed?" he demanded banteringly.

Gladness rushed back into the girl. She raised a face that sparkled.

"The very first," she affirmed, very much out of breath. "That is, upon the feet. In Italy we go up by diligence and there is always a hotel at the top for tea."

"We'll have a little old bonfire at the top for tea. . . . Don't take it so fast and you'll be all right," he advised, and, laying a restraining hand upon her arm he held her back while Cousin Jane, with her casual, careless smile, pa.s.sed ahead to join one of the Martin party.

It was an act of masterful significance. Maria Angelina accepted it meekly.

"Like this?" asked Johnny of her smiling face.

"I love it," she told him, and looked happily at the green woods about them, and across the river, rushing now, to where the forest was clinging to sharply rising mountain flanks. Her eyes followed till they found the bare, shouldering peaks outlined against the blue and white of the c.u.mulous sky.

The beauty about her flooded the springs of happiness. It was a wonderful world, a radiant world, a world of dream and delights. It was a world more real than the fantasy of moonlight. She felt more real. She was herself, too, not some strange, diaphanous image conjured out of tulle and gauze, she was her own true flesh-and-blood self, living in a dream that was true.

She looked away from the mountains and smiled up at Johnny Byrd very much as the young princess in the fairy tale must have smiled at the all-conquering prince, and Johnny Byrd's blue eyes grew bluer and brighter and his voice dropped into intimate possessiveness.

It didn't matter in the least what they talked about. They were absurdly merry, loitering behind the procession.

Suddenly it occurred to Maria Angelina that it had been some time since he had drawn her back from Cousin Jane's casual but comprehending smile, some time since they had even heard the echo of voices ahead.

Her conscience woke guiltily.

"We must hurry," she declared, quickening her own small steps.

Teasingly Johnny Byrd hung back. "'Fraid cat, 'fraid cat--what you 'fraid of, Maria Angelina?"

He added, "I'm not going to eat you--though I'd like to," he finished in lower tone.

"But it is getting dark! There are clouds," said the girl, gazing up in frank surprise at the changed sky. She had not noticed when the sunlight fled. It was still visible across the river, slipping over a hill's shoulder, but from their woods it was withdrawn and a dark shadow was stretching across them.

"Clouds--what do you care for clouds?" scoffed Johnny gayly, and in his rollicking tenor, "Just roll dem clouds along," sang he.

Politely Maria Angelina waited until he had finished the song, but she waited with an uneasy mind.

She cared very much for clouds. They looked very threatening, blowing so suddenly over the mountain top, overcasting the brightness of the way.