"Barry? _You_ in town?" Cousin Jane greeted him with an exaggerated astonishment as he shook her hand.
Maria Angelina noted that he did not kiss it. She had read that this was not done openly in America but was a mark of especial tenderness.
"Why not?" he retorted promptly. "You seem to forget, dear lady, that I am again a wor-rking man, without whom the World's Greatest Daily would lose half its circulation. Of course I'm here."
"I thought you might be taking a vacation--in York Harbor," she said, laughing.
"Oh, cat!" he derided. "Kitty, kitty, kitty."
"Don't let her kid you, Barry," advised Cousin Jim, delving into his lobster.
"But since you _are_ here," went on Cousin Jane, "you can meet my little cousin from Italy, which is the reason why we are here. Her boat came in this morning and she has never been away from home before. Mr. Elder, the Signorina Santonini."
"Welcome to the city, Signorina," said the young man, with a quick, bright smile, stooping to gaze under the huge, white hat. He had odd eyes, not large, but vivid hazel, with yellow lights in them.
"How do you like New York? What do you think of America? What is your opinion of prohibition and the uniformity of divorce laws? Have you ever written _vers libre_? Are----"
"Barry, stop bombarding the child!" exclaimed Mrs. Blair. "You are the first young man she has met in America. Stop making her fear the race."
"Take him away and dance with him, Jane," said Mr. Blair. "This was probably prearranged, you know."
If he believed it, he looked very tranquil, the startled Maria Angelina thought, surprised into an upward glance. The two men were smiling very frankly at each other. Mrs. Blair did not protest but rose, remarking, "Come, Barry, since we are discovered. You can have something cool afterwards."
"I'll have little Cousin afterwards," said Barry Elder. "I want to be the first young man she has danced with in America."
"You won't be the last," Mr. Blair told him with a twinkling glance at Maria Angelina's lovely little face.
"One of Jane's youngsters," he added, explanatorily to her. "She always has a lot around--she says they are the companions her son would have had if she'd had one."
Then, before Maria Angelina's polite but bewildered attention, he said more comprehensibly, "You'll find Jane a lot younger than Ruth . . . Barry's a clever chap--special work on one of the papers. Was in the aviation. Did a play that fluked last year. Too much Harvard in it, I expect. But a clever chap, very clever. Like him," he added decisively.