," Barry Elder agreed very
promptly. "That's the way it would look in America. Being lost is an
unpleasant accident. Nothing more--between young people of good family.
Not that young people of good families make a practice of being lost,"
he supplemented, his eyes dancing in spite of himself at Maria
Angelina's deepening amaze, "but when anything like that happens--as it
has before this in the Adirondacks--people don't start an ugly scandal.
They may talk a little of course, but it won't do you any real harm.
. . . And it wouldn't be quite nice for Johnny to go rushing about
offering you marriage. The occasion doesn't demand it in the least."

Helplessly she regarded him. . . . She felt utterly astray--astray and
blundering. . . .

"Would Cousin Jane think so?" she appealed.

"She would," averred Barry stoutly, over the twinge of an inner qualm.
"And so would your own mother, if she were here."

But there Maria Angelina was on solid ground.

"You know little about _that_," she told him with spirit. "If I were
lost in Italy----"

But it was so impossible, being lost in Italy, that Maria Angelina could
only break off and guard a bewildered silence.

"Then I expect your mother had better not know," was all the counsel
that Barry Elder could offer, realizing doubtfully that it was far from
a counsel of perfection. "You had better let that depend upon Mrs.
Blair."

"I tried to tell her all this," Johnny broke in with an accent of
triumph.

But Maria Angelina was looking only at Barry Elder.

"Can you tell me that it is nothing?" she said pitifully, her eyes big
and black in her white face. "To have been gone all night with that
young man--to have been found by you--another young man? Even if the
Americans make light of it--is it not what you call an escapade?"

"I have to admit that it's an escapade--an accidental escapade," Barry
qualified carefully. "But I don't know any way out of it--unless we all
stand together," he said slowly, "and all pretend that you got lost
alone and found alone. That's very simple, really, and I think perhaps
it would make things easier for you."

"Now you're saying something!" Johnny was jubilant. "Absolute
intelligence--gleam of positive genius. . . . She was lost alone. Right
after the thunder shower. Missed the others and I went to a high place
to look for them and we never found each other. . . . Spent the night
searching for her," Johnny threw in carelessly, marking out a nea