tness.

"No, Signorina, it is something that I want and that I can get."

"There is no difficulty there," she murmured.

"No?" His tone held mockery. "The difficulty is in me. . . . I don't
want to want it."

His eyes continued to rest on her in ironic smiling.

"Signorina, what would you do if you wanted a cake, oh, such a beautiful
cake, all white icing and lovely sugar outside . . . and within--well,
something that was very, very bad for the digestion? Only the first bite
would be good, you see. But such a first bite! And you wanted
it--because the icing was so marvelous and the sugar so sweet. . . . And
if you had wanted that cake a long time, oh, before you knew what a
cheating thing it was within, and if you had been denied it and suddenly
found it was within your reach----?"

He broke off with a laugh.

Slowly she asked, "And would you have to eat the cake if you took the
first bite?"

His voice was harsh. "To the last crumb."

"Then I would not bite."

"But the frosting, Signorina, the pretty pink and white frosting!"

So bitter was his laugh that the girl grew older in understanding. She
thought of the girl she had seen by his side in the restaurant, the girl
whose eyes had been as blue as the sea and her hair yellow as amber
. . . the girl who had angled for Bob Martin's money.

She remembered that Barry Elder had of late inherited some money.

Impulsively she leaned towards him, her eyes dark and pitiful in her
white face.

"Do not touch it," she whispered. "Do not. I do not want _you_ to be
unhappy----"

Utterly she understood. His absurd metaphor was no protection against
her. She remembered all Cousin Jane's implications, all the bald
revelations of Johnny Byrd.

Somehow he had come to know that the heart of Leila Grey was a cheating
thing, yet for the sake of the beauty which had so teased him, for the
glamorous loveliness of those blue eyes and rosy tints, he was almost
ready to let himself be borne on by his inclinations. . . .

Barry Elder looked startled at that earnest little whisper and his eyes
met hers unguarded a full minute, then a whimsical smile touched his
lips to softness.

"I'm afraid you have a tender heart, Maria Angelina Santonini," he said.
"You want all the world to have nice wholesome cake, beautifully
frosted--don't you?"

Her gravity refused his banter. "Not all the world. Only those for whom
realities matter. Only those--those like you, Signor--who could fe