He turned his eyes to her, and she saw there was smoldering fire beneath their surface brightness.
"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----?"
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."
"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?"