me."

"That was only because I thought 'Don' was a sort of Spanish equivalent
of 'Sir' in English," Myra responded, somewhat taken aback. "Here I
should address a Knight or a Baronet as 'Sir Charles' without the
slightest idea of being familiar, but I should not expect him to
respond by addressing me as 'Myra.' Do I make myself plain?"

"Dear lady, you could never make yourself plain, you who are so
beautiful, but you are explicit," answered Don Carlos with a radiant
smile that made him look quite boyish. "I stand rebuked, Myra, but I
am impenitent. Surely one is not committing a crime by calling the
girl one loves by her Christian name? I would prefer to call you cara
mia or querida, which are the Spanish equivalents for my beloved and
sweetheart, but, of course, as you seem to think I----"

"Senor de Ruiz, I have had enough of this nonsense!" Myra interrupted,
impatiently. "Your attempts at love-making are utterly distasteful,
and if you imagine you are going to add me to your list of conquests
you are a case for a mental specialist."

"Alas!" exclaimed Don Carlos, and again sighed heavily. "You seem to
think I am a sort of mountebank who makes a hobby of paying court to
women. You misjudge me, Myra. True, I have made love to women before,
true, many have fallen in love with me and thrown themselves at my
head--as you say in English. True----"

"You are boasting again," interposed Myra once more. "I have no desire
or inclination to listen to an account of your amorous conquests."

"But you must listen, Myra," said Don Carlos earnestly. "You misjudge
me. True, there have been many women in my life, but not one who
inspired love, not one to whom I offered my heart, not one whom I had
any wish to marry. Long ago it was foretold by a gipsy gifted with
second sight that I should meet my fate in my thirty-fifth year in a
foreign land, meet my ideal, the woman of my dreams. That prophecy has
come true. The moment our eyes first met yesterday I knew you were the
woman for whom I had been seeking and waiting. It is useless to fight
against destiny, Myra. I shall win you by hook or by crook, and make
you all mine."

"That sounds like a challenge, Don Carlos," retorted Myra with forced
lightness. "As you believe in gipsy forecasts, however, let me tell
you that a gipsy woman 'read my hand' a few years ago, warned me to
beware of a tall, dark man, and foretold that I should marry a tall,
fair man. If s