and started making friends with Deolda, who opened the trunk,
and I glimpsed something embroidered in red flowers.

"Oh, Deolda, let me see. Oh, let me see!" I cried.

It was a saffron shawl all embroidered with splotchy red flowers as big
as my hand. It made me tingle as it lay there in its crinkly folds,
telling of another civilization and other lands than our somber shores.
The shawl and its crawling, venomous, alluring flowers marked Deolda off
from us. She seemed to belong to the shawl and its scarlet insinuations.

"That was my mother's," she said. Then she added this astounding thing:
"My mother was a great dancer. All Lisbon went wild about her. When she
danced the whole town went crazy. The bullfighters and the princes would
come--"

"But how--?" I started, and stopped, for Deolda had dropped beside the
chest and pressed her face in the shawl, and I remembered that her
mother was dead only a few days ago, and I couldn't ask her how the
great dancer came to be in Dennisport in the cabin under the dunes. I
tiptoed out, my heart thrilled with romance for the gypsy dancer's
daughter.

When my aunt was ready for bed there was no Deolda. Later came the sound
of footsteps and my aunt's voice in the hall outside my room.

"That you, Deolda?"

"Yes'm."

"Where were you all evening?"

"Oh, just out under the lilacs."

"For pity's sake! Out under the lilacs! What were you doing out there?"

Deolda's voice came clear and tranquil. "Making love with Johnny
Deutra."

I held my breath. What can you do when a girl tells the truth unabashed.

"I've known Johnny Deutra ever since he came from the Islands, Deolda,"
my aunt said, sternly. "He'll mean it when he falls in love."

"I know it," said Deolda, with a little breathless catch in her voice.

"He's only a kid. He's barely twenty," my aunt went on, inexorably.
"He's got to help his mother. He's not got enough to marry; any girl who
married him would have to live with the old folks. Look where you're
going, Deolda."

There was silence, and I heard their footsteps going to their rooms.

The next day Deolda went to walk, and back she came, old Conboy driving
her in his motor. Old Conboy was rich; he had one of the first motors on
the Cape, when cars were still a wonder. After that Deolda went off in
Conboy's motor as soon as her dishes were done and after supper there
would be handsome Johnny Deutra. We were profoundly shocked. You may be
sure village tongu