ing the
Court of St. James."

It was a chance shot, but it hit the mark.

"I had not thought you so quick," she said, with a note of sincerity
under the mockery.

"I am not quick, senorita," I replied. "It is no more than the
reflection of your own wit."

"That does not ring true."

"It is true that you raise me above my dull self."

"Have I said that I have found you dull?"

"I have never succeeded in acquiring the modish smartness of the
gallants and the wits."

"That, senor, is beyond the power of a man to acquire." I looked for
mockery in her eyes, and saw only gravity. The scarlet lips were curved
in scorn, but not of myself. "It is only those born as brainless magpies
who can chatter. You were right when you said that I could tell of
truths from my own observation. I left England with as little regret as
I shall--"

"Do not say it, senorita!" I protested.

"You Americans! You have the persistence of the British, with no small
share of French alertness!"

"We are a mixed people--" I began.

"Mongrel!" she thrust at me, with a flash of hauteur.

"Not so ill a name for a race," I replied. "History tells of a people
called Iberians. The Ph[oe]nicians and Carthagenians landed on their
shores. Then came the Romans; later, the barbaric hordes from the
North,--Goths, Vandals, Suevi; later still, the Moors."

The last was too much for her restraint. "Moors!--Moors! Mohammedan
slaves!" she exclaimed. "We drove them out--man, woman, and
child--before your land was so much as discovered."

"Yet not before they had done what little could be done toward
civilizing barbaric Europe, and not before their blood had mingled--"

"_Santisima Virgen!_" she cried, in a passion which was all the more
striking for the restraint that held it in leash--"I, a daughter of such
blood!--you say it?"

"I do not say it, senorita," I replied, with such steadiness as I could
command under the flashing anger of her glance.

"Then what?" she demanded.

"I spoke of your race in general, senorita. There are self-evident
facts. Even were the fact which you so abhor true as to yourself, would
your eyes be any the less wondrously glorious? Your dusky hair--"

She burst into a rippling laugh, more musical than the notes of any
instrument. "_Santa Maria!_" she murmured. "You miss few
opportunities--for an Anglo-American!"

"A man asks only for reasonable opportunities, senorita,--a fair field
and no favors."

"The last is easy