Chapter II

"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!"