re him with the rest. She looked so quickly from one to
another that any one might have thought her to be anxiously searching
for a friend in the crowd. But she had none then, and she was but
assuring herself once, and for all her life, that the man she was to
love was immeasurably beyond all other men, though the others were the
very flower of Spain's young chivalry.

Of course, as she told herself now, she had not loved him then, nor even
when she heard his voice speaking to her the first time and was almost
too happy to understand his words. But she had remembered them. He had
asked her whether she lived in Madrid. She had told him that she lived
in the Alcazar itself, since her father commanded the guards and had his
quarters in the palace. And then Don John had looked at her very fixedly
for a moment, and had seemed pleased, for he smiled and said that he
hoped he might see her often, and that if it were in his power to be of
use to her father, he would do what he could. She was sure that she had
not loved him then, though she had dreamed of his winning face and voice
and had thought of little else all the next day, and the day after that,
with a sort of feverish longing to see him again, and had asked the
Duchess Alvarez so many questions about him that the Duchess had smiled
oddly, and had shaken her handsome young head a little, saying that it
was better not to think too much about Don John of Austria. Surely, she
had not loved him already, at first sight. But on the evening of the
third day, towards sunset, when she had been walking with Inez on a
deserted terrace where no one but the two sisters ever went, Don John
had suddenly appeared, sauntering idly out with one of his gentlemen on
his left, as if he expected nothing at all; and he had seemed very much
surprised to see her, and had bowed low, and somehow very soon, blind
Inez, who was little more than a child three years ago, was leading the
gentleman about the terrace, to show him where the best roses grew,
which she knew by their touch and smell, and Don John and Dolores were
seated on an old stone bench, talking earnestly together. Even to
herself she admitted that she had loved him from that evening, and
whenever she thought of it she smelt the first scent of roses, and saw
his face with the blaze of the sunset in his eyes, and heard his voice
saying that he should come to the terrace again at that hour, in which
matter he had kept his word as faithfull