to grant."

"You mean--?"

"No favors."

She had me hard. I rallied as best I could. "But a fair field--?"

"Can there be such?" she countered. "You are Anglo-American; I am
Spanish."

"Vallois has a French sound."

Her chin rose a trifle higher. "It is a name that crowns the most
glorious pages in the history of France."

I thought of St. Bartholomew, and smiled grimly. "I, too, can trace back
to one ancestor of French blood. He died by command of Charles de
Valois. He was a shoemaker and a Huguenot."

She looked at me with a level gaze. "It is evident you are one who does
not fear to face the truth. You have yourself named the barrier and the
gulf between us."

"Barriers have been leaped; gulfs spanned."

"None such as these!"

"Senorita, we each had four grandparents, they each had four. That is
sixteen in the fourth generation back. How many in ten generations? Who
can say he is of this blood or that?"

"I do not pretend to the skill to refute specious logic, and--here is
the gate. My thanks to you."

"Senorita!" I protested.

"_Adios_, senor! Open your eyes to the barrier and the gulf."

"I see them, and they shall not stop me from crossing!" Again I
encountered the inscrutable glance that opened to me the darkness in the
fathomless depths of her eyes. "I swear it!" I vowed.

Still gazing full at me, she replied: "It may be that in the Spring we
shall pass through New Orleans."

I would have protested--asked for a word more to add to this meagre
information. But she turned in at the gate, and the Irishwoman was at my
elbow.

"Till then, if not before, _au revoir_, senorita!" I called in parting.

She did not glance about or speak.

CHAPTER VI

THE WEB OF THE PLOTTER

Three days of waiting was the utmost I could force myself to endure. On
the afternoon of the fourth I called at the house on the side street.
The door was opened by the Irishwoman, who met me with a broad grin.

"Oi looked for ye sooner, sor!" was her greeting.

"Senorita Vallois--?"

"Flown, sor,--more's th' pity! Ye're a loikely lad, sor, if ye'll oxcuse
th' liberty."

"Gone?" I muttered. "Her uncle--?"

"Came an' packed her off, bag an' baggage, two days gone."

"Two days!--Where?"

"'Tis yersilf, sor, is to foind out th' same," she chuckled.

I held out a piece of silver. "Will that jog your memory, mistress?"

"Divil take ye!" she cried, and she struck the quarter dollar from my
hand. "Am Oi a bl