Mariposa? Why not 'senorita?'"

"Euphony," she laughed, "nothing more, I assure you. It is more musical."

"Exactly. But tell me, mademoiselle, shall we not take up matters where
we dropped them the other evening? You have no objection I hope to
discussing business?"

She appeared to ponder this proposition a moment. "Bah!" she cried
suddenly. "You are right, quite right. It is an opportunity not to be
wasted. But one moment, I can not talk with this on."

She swept off the mantilla and threw it aside. Her brown hair was rolled
and twisted in great coils about her head, there were tendrils of it
which sprang thickly about her brow and neck. The mask which concealed
her face was held by a ribbon tied at the back of her head. She pulled at
this but only succeeded in knotting it, and with an exclamation of
impatience, she bent toward Hayden, murmuring:

"Please, senor."

He skilfully untied the knot, but while at this occupation the tendrils,
shining like gold in the warm, yellow glow of the moon skylight, curled
about his fingers, electric, tingling, leaving a faint, stinging
remembrance.

"Oh, thank you."

She pulled off the mask and tossed it aside with a long breath of relief,
and looked up, encountering Hayden's curious and admiring gaze. In that
moment of unveiling, he saw before him a lady of high emprise.

"A diamond-drill of a woman!" cried Robert to himself; and the steel of
him paid her gallant homage, homage all the more sincere in that she
asked it not, neither craved nor stooped to win it. All she asked was the
game, the game with the odds against her. Cool, resourceful, she was
concerned with neither doubts nor scruples. To such natures all roads
lead to Rome. Before them lie the city of their hopes. That the roads are
rocky and beset with unknown perils does not alarm, deter, or even
particularly interest them. They see only Rome.

In that brief scrutiny permitted himself by a well-bred man, Hayden
decided that she was a Gipsy. Her rather short face, with the full,
square chin, was of a clear brown; her intense and vivid eyes were green,
a beautiful and rare shade of olive. Her mouth was large, merry and
inscrutable, with a particularly short upper lip, a mouth as reckless as
Mercutio's. It would be difficult to say which impression predominated,
beauty or force of character, or if, indeed, one could be disassociated
from the other. Divorced from the sheer individuality, the power which
she expr