"

Borne headlong on her flood of revelation Maria Angelina could not stop
to watch the change in Barry Elder's face. And she was utterly
unprepared for the immense vehemence of the exclamation which cut into
her consciousness with such startling effect that she stopped and gasped
and swallowed uncertainly before finishing in an altered key, "And so I
must marry in America--for Julietta's dower----"

In an odd voice Barry offered, "You think it your duty--because Byrd is
so rich----?"

"I know it is my duty," she gave back, goaded to desperation, "but--but,
oh, it is like that cake of yours, Signor--of a nothingness to me
within!"

Very abruptly Barry turned from her; he drove his hands deep into his
pocket and strode across the room and back. He brought up directly in
front of her.

"Maria Angelina," he said softly, "how old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"How many men have you known?"

"You, first, Signor, then the others here."

"But you did care for him," he said. "You kissed him."

Her eyes dropped, her cheeks flamed and he saw her lips quiver--those
soft, sensitive lips of hers which seemed to breathe such tender warmth
and perfume like the warmth and perfume of a flower. But through the
shine of tears her eyes came back to his.

"No, Signor, it was he who kissed me--and without my consent! I did not
kiss him--never, never, never!"

"Is there such a difference?"

"But there is all the difference----"

"Maria Angelina, you are sure that to kiss a man yourself, to kiss him
deliberately, unmistakably upon the lips, is a final seal and ultimate
surrender, and that if you do not marry a man you have so kissed you
would be no better than a worthless deceiver, an outrageous flirt, an
abandoned trifler----"

She looked at him amazedly.

His eyes were oddly dancing, his lips were curved in a boyish smile,
infinitely merry, infinitely tender; the wind was blowing back the curly
locks of hair from his face, giving it the look of a victorious runner,
arrived at some swift goal.

Back of him, through the open door of the cabin, the green and gold of
the forest shone in translucent brightness.

"But yes--that is true----" she stammered, not daring to trust that rush
of happiness, that sweet and secret singing of her blood.

"Then, Maria Angelina," said he gayly yet adoringly, "Maria Angelina,
you little darling of the gods, come here instantly and kiss me. . . .
For I am never going to let you go again."