Madrid, where his Majesty the
King is holding Court."

"Yes, your Highness," and she went, but her inflection showed that she
knew herself to be in the right. Nita was too good a servant to argue
with her betters.

"Carlos here? How could he be, I wonder?" and the Princess fumbled with
her keys, until she found the right one. She opened the trunk with a
trembling hand, and began to raise the cover, a quiver in her voice.

"Are you all right ... Mr. Jarvis?"

It was the voice of a nervous, frightened girl--not of a royal
personage--this time.

Just then she heard a knock on the cabin door. There was no time for a
response. "Quiet! Be careful!" she cautioned, _sotto voce_.

As she hurried to the door, she pulled her taut nerves together. There
on the threshold was her kinsman: Nita had been right as usual, in her
sharp way.

Carlos, Duke of Alva, with smiling lips and sinister eyes, greeted her
with the suave courtesy which is so characteristic of his race and
class. He typified the worst of the Spanish folk, even as the young
girl did the best. To a keen student of physiognomy the mental attitude
of the Duke of Alva would have been an open book. To Maria Theresa,
loyal to family and countrymen, he was the symbol of her own strata in
Spain--yet, beneath her gracious forgiveness of and enforced
indifference to many things, there lurked a latent mistrust, which she
had never yet defined in practical, applicable terms.

With white teeth, crisp-curling black hair, and eyes of sparkling
coal-shade, the Duke of Alva bowed with that polished grace which had
broken many a heart and carried him over many a stretch of thin ice, in
the courtly adventuring on the Continent.

"Carlos!" exclaimed the Princess.

"Fair cousin--if I but knew you were as pleased, as you are surprised,
at seeing me!" With the words he advanced and kissed her cold
finger-tips with Old-World punctiliousness.

"What are you doing on the _Mauretania_? Why did you leave Spain,
Carlos?"

As he shut the door he smiled, and now her intuition warned her of the
cunning which lurked behind those pleasantly curving lips.

"First tell me that you are glad to see me! I have come many leagues to
hear those words, Maria!"

"Why.... Why,... of course, I am always glad to see you, cousin."

He simulated a pathetic irony. "You say you are always glad to see
me--and yet, I fear it is not _always_ since my unfortunate quarrel
with your brother. Alas, and th