t as to think--but she doesn't act as if she really cared about
it. It isn't just a pose. . . . Do you imagine," said Ruth, suddenly
lapsing into a little Old World sentiment herself, "that she's gone on
some one in Italy and they sent her over to forget him? That might
account----"

"Lucy's letter didn't sound like it. She was very emphatic about Maria
Angelina's knowing nothing of the world or young men. I rather
gathered," Mrs. Blair made out, "that the family had a plain daughter to
marry off and wanted the pretty one in ambush for a while--they take
care of those things, you know."

"And I suppose if she copped a millionaire in the ambush they wouldn't
howl bloody murder," said the girl, with admirable intuition.

"Oh, well----" She yawned and looked out of the window. "She's probably
having the time of her life. . . . I'm grateful she turned out such a
little peach. . . . When she goes back and marries some fat spaghetti it
will give her something to moon about to remember how she and Johnny
Byrd used to sit out and strum to the stars---- There he is now."

"Bob?" said Mrs. Blair absently, her mind occupied by her young
daughter's large sophistication.

"Johnny," said Ruth.

She leaned half out the window as the red roadster shot thunderously
across the rustic bridge and brought up sharply on the driveway below.
With a shouted greeting she brought the driver's red-blonde head to
attention.

"Hullo--where's the Bob?"

Johnny grinned. "Trying to ride one horse and lead another. Sweet mount
he's bringing you, Ruth. Didn't like the way I passed him. Bet you he
throws you."

"Bet you he doesn't."

"You lose. . . . Where's the little Wop?"

"You mean Maria Angelina Santonini?"

"Gosh, is that all? Well, you scoot across to her room and tell Maria
Angelina Santonini that she has a perfectly good date with me."

"She powdered her nose and went down stairs an hour ago," Ruth sang
down, just as a small figure emerged from the music room upon the
veranda and approached the rail.

"The little Wop is here, Signor," said Maria Angelina lightly.

Unabashed Johnny Byrd beamed at her. It was a perfectly good sensation,
each time, to see her. One grew to suspect, between times, that anything
so enchanting didn't really exist--and then, suddenly, there she was,
like a conjurer's trick, every lovely young line of her.

Johnny knew girls. He knew them, he would have informed you, backwards
and forwards. And he lik