"Angelo, you forgot the book of sonnets!"
Ione Phillips, half recumbent on the springy auto cushions, was
canopied by a low swinging bough of dogwood, heavy with snowy white
blossoms. At her feet rippled and purled a brook which the spring
freshets forced laughingly on its way to a river down in the valley.
The golden gleam of the dog's-tooth violets in the sward at either
hand made a rug such as even the hired connoisseurs of her
multi-millionaire father could not hope to spread upon his floors.
Anemones, in their soft, fawnlike coats, peeped toward her like so
many pretty nuns. Shyly they took glances at her abundant feminine
vigor and beauty.
"Si, signorina mia."
Angelo hurried back to the abandoned automobile in the road and
brought the sonnets.
He was twenty-three years old--the skidoo age, the fine time of youth
when mundane troubles are shed as easily as the rain from a well
thatched cottage. He was lithe of form, had a perfect nose and lips
shaped for kissing pretty girls. His brow was arched finely and his
hair was raven.
Angelo was from the Piemonte, that delectable province on the Swiss
border where the cool shadow of the Alps tries in vain to fathom
lakes as soft, as sweet and as deep as the eyes of women. It was in
this country, when she was on her way to Venice with her father, that
they met for the first time. Mr. Phillips wanted a chauffeur who
spoke Italian, French and English and Angelo fled his studies at the
University of Torino to take the job and be near her and within the
sound of her sweet voice.
"Did you bring the grammar book, too?" asked Ione.
"Si, signorina," he replied. "I bring eet sure."
Little patches of sunlight played about her, kissing her full lips,
the pink lobes of her shell-like ears, dancing in her golden tresses
and caressing her warm cheeks.
There was no sonnet in the book Shakespeare made that could approach
in delectability the loveliness before Angelo.
"Now for the lesson," she said, making room for him on the cushions.
He sighed and began with the same old verb, the same, sweet, old verb
which makes a tie that binds all young men and all young girls.
"Io amo," he began.
"Io amo," she repeated. "I love."
"Tu ami," he read.
"Tu ami--thou lovest," she echoed.
"Egli ami."
"Egli ami--he loves."
"Noi amiamo."
"Noi amiamo--we love."
Her hand touched his as she turned the leaf. He caught it and
crumpled it in his own.
"Signorina, signorina amatissima," he said. "I love you, I love you
so!"
She did not draw back from him or deny him the honey of her lips.
"Hello! Hello, people!"
It was as if all the first violins in the heavenly choir had popped
their strings at the same moment.
They turned, frightened, and beheld the face of a young man amid the
leaves of their trysting place.
"Beg pardon," said the intruder. "I saw a machine out in the road
and know someone would be near. I've lost my way, y'know. Could you
help a chap reach Edgewater?"
Ione's face was crimson.
"Why," she gasped, "you are Mr. Winthrop, are you not?"
Willie removed a bulgy cap.
"And you are Miss Phillips, I do declare," he said in feigned
surprise. "Do forgive me. Really, I'm much distressed and all that
sort of thing, what? Never dreamed for a moment it was your car in
the road. Quite--ah stupid of me, Miss Phillips. But you'll forgive
me, won't you?"
Angelo scrambled to his feet and began picking up cushions and books.
"We paused for a drink of water from the brook," Ione fibbed. "We
are returning by way of Edgewater. You may follow my car."
"So kind of you," said Willie. "Lovely day, isn't it?"
"Yes," she replied coldly.
Angelo lugged the books and the cushions to the car in menial fashion.
"How about riding back with me in my new car?" inquired Willie as
Ione reached the road. "It's a hummer."
"Thank you, but the road is new to my chauffeur and I must point out
the way for him," she replied. "We shall be coming back soon. The
ride along the Palisades is very beautiful in the spring-time."
Angelo had cranked up his machine with several vicious twists. She
took her seat behind him.
"Full speed, Angelo," she whispered.
"I like to break hees neck, bella mia," growled her lover.
"He ees no gentleman, maledetto sia!"