"You lie down and rest," said the authoritative voice. "If there's any going to be done I'll do it. Is there some other Babe in the Woods to be found?"
"You get a good rest. You can tell me all about it and who you are when you're dry and warm."
She yielded to the compulsion in his voice and to her own weakness, and lay very still and inert, her cheek upon her outflung arm, her eyes watching the red dance of flames through the black strands of her hair. It was the final irony, she felt, of that dreadful night. To meet Barry Elder again--like this--after all her dreams----
And he did not know her. He had come to that place of his, in the Adirondacks, of which he had spoken, and had never given her a thought. He had never come to see her. . . .
A great wave of mortification surged over Maria Angelina, bearing a medley of images, of thoughts, of old hopes--like the wash from some sinking ship. What a fool of hope she had been! How vain and silly and credulous! . . . She had dreamed of this man, sung to the thought of him--quickened to absurd expectancy at every stir of the wheels. . . . And then she had pictured him at the seashore, beneath the spell of that gold-haired siren--and here he was, quite near and free--utterly unremembering!
She had suffered many pangs of mortification this night but now her poor, shamed spirit bled afresh.
But perhaps he had just come. And certainly he would remember to come and see his friends, the Blairs, and possibly he would remember that foreign cousin of theirs that he had danced with--just remember her with pleasant friendliness. She would give herself so much of balm.
And who indeed was she for Barry Elder to remember? Just a very young, very silly goose of a girl, a little foreigner . . . some one to nickname and pet carelessly . . . a girl who had been good enough for Johnny Byrd to make love to but not good enough for him to marry. . . .
A girl who had thrown her name recklessly to the winds and who, to-morrow, would be a byword. . . .
These thoughts ached in her with her bruised flesh.
Meanwhile Barry Elder had been making quick trips about the room and now he threw down an armful of garments beside her and knelt at her feet, tugging at her sopping shoes.