"What was understood?" said Johnny Byrd. "That I was going to marry you--because I kissed you?" And with that dreadful hostile grimness he insisted, "You knew darned well I wasn't proposing to you."
What did he mean? Had not every action of his been an affirmation of their relation? Did he believe she was one to whom men acted lightly? Had he never meant to propose to her, never meant to marry?
Last night at the dance--this afternoon in the woods--what had he meant by all his admiration and his boldness?
And that evening on the mountain, when, with his arm around her, he had murmured that he would take care of her. . . . Had he meant nothing by it, nothing, except the casual insolent intimacy which a man would grant a _ballerina_?
Or was he now turning from her in dreadful abandonment because after this scandal she would be too conspicuous to make it agreeable to carry out the intentions--perhaps only the vaguely realized intentions--of the past?
But why then, why had he kissed her on the mountain?
Utter terror beset her. Her voice shook so that the words dropped almost incoherently from the quivering lips.
"But if not--if not--Oh, you must know that now--now it is imperative!"
Shameful beseeching--shameful that she should have to beseech. Where was his manhood, his chivalry--where his compassion?
"Imperative _nuts_! You don't mean to say you're trying to make me marry you because we got lost in the woods?"
Desperately the girl struggled for dignity.
"It is the least you could do, Signor. Even if--if you had not cared----"
"You little nut." Johnny's tones had altered. More mildly he went on, "I don't quite get you, Ri-Ri, and I don't think you get me. It isn't up to me to do any marrying, if that's honestly what's worrying you. And I'm not going to be stampeded, if that's what you're trying to do. . . . Our reputations will have to stand it."
And this, Maria Angelina despairingly recalled, was the man who had kissed her, had watched the moon rise with his arm about her, promising her his protection. . . . Wildly she wished that she had died before she had come to this--a thing lightly regarded and repudiated.
It was horrible to plead to him but the panic of her plight drove her on.