To Myra's relief, Lady Fermanagh returned just then, full of apologies
for having been detained so long at the telephone.
"I hope Myra has been keeping you entertained, señor," she inquired,
and Don Carlos nodded smilingly.
"More than entertained, Lady Fermanagh," he answered. "Miss Rostrevor
and I have been discussing predestination. I have been telling her it
was foretold by the King of the Gypsies that in this, my thirty-fifth
year, I should meet my ideal, the woman predestined to be my wife. I
have met her. The prophecy has come true."
"I'm afraid it is another case of mistaken identity, Aunt Clarissa,"
interposed Myra. "Señor de Ruiz has made the amazing and amusing
suggestion that I am the woman! Did you ever hear anything more
absurd?"
She thought to cover Don Carlos with confusion, but he did not turn a
hair.
"Alas, Lady Fermanagh, your charming niece refuses to take me
seriously!" he smilingly lamented. "It seems she was warned as a child
to beware of a tall, dark, handsome man, and to put no faith in his
honeyed words. I am desolated--but only temporarily!"
"From what I can make of it, you appear to have been engaged in a
'leg-pulling' contest," commented Lady Fermanagh, darting a quick
glance from one to the other, and deciding that Myra was probably
evolving some mischievous joke. "You don't mean to tell me seriously,
Don Carlos, that you have any faith in the predictions of a gipsy?"
"Dear lady, since the King of the Gypsies predicted I should get my
heart's desire, surely it would be almost heresy to doubt?" Don Carlos
replied, with a side-glance at Myra. "In my own country I have the
reputation always of gaining anything on which I set my heart, and here
I intend to live up to my reputation. Assuredly the Gypsy King's
prediction will come true, your ladyship."
He took his leave a few minutes later, pleasing Lady Fermanagh greatly
by bowing low over her hand and raising her fingers to his lips.
"One of the most charming men I have met for years," the old lady
remarked, when the door closed behind him. "He is a true Spanish
grandee, with all the grace of a born courtier. I think it was
exceedingly rude of you, Myra, to snatch your hand away as you did when
Don Carlos was going to kiss your fingertips."
"Personally, Aunt, I think he is the most arrogant, ill-mannered and
insufferably conceited man I have ever met," Myra responded warmly.
"He openly boasts that no woman can resist him, prides himself on his
conquests, and while you were out of the room he was making passionate
love to me, and only made fun of my attempts to snub him. I hope you
won't invite the horrible creature here again."