Expectant, and a trifle apprehensive, Myra awaited events. Nothing
happened. A week elapsed without her seeing, or hearing from, Don
Carlos, and when she made inquiries about him she learned from Tony
that he had returned to Spain.
"Said he had some business matters to attend to, and wanted to arrange
for our entertainment at his place out there," explained Tony. "He
promised to be back in time to join the yacht at Southampton."
Myra was piqued. It hurt her pride to think she had not made a
conquest after all, and had merely been flattering herself in imagining
she had made Don Carlos fall in love with her.
"What a fool I feel!" soliloquised Myra. "I was confident he was in
desperate earnest and was crazy about me, and I have been wondering how
to resist and repel him. He shows how little he cares by going off to
Spain without even calling to say good-bye, and with never a farewell
note. Oh, what an exasperating creature!"
Another ten days passed uneventfully, and Myra found herself oddly
discontented with life and things in general. It was a dismal November
afternoon, she had no engagements, and was feeling utterly bored as she
took tea alone in the drawing room of her aunt's house in Mayfair,
when, to her astonishment, Don Carlos de Ruiz was announced. Her heart
gave a convulsive leap at the mere mention of his name, and it was
throbbing faster than its wont as she rose to greet him, although she
assumed an attitude of cool indifference.
"Sure, and it's seriously annoyed with you, I am, Don Carlos, and you
needn't expect me to say I'm glad to see you," she said in her musical
Irish voice as she gave him her hand. "How very rude of you to
disappear without even a word of farewell. Rude, did I say? Perhaps
crude would be a better word. How rude and crude to dash back to Spain
to attend to some matter of business when you had been trying to
pretend to be hopelessly in love."
"Not 'hopelessly,' Myra," Don Carlos responded quietly, raising her
fingers to his lips. "Never have I been 'hopelessly' in love, for
always I have been sure at heart that I should win.... So you have
missed me, darling, and now your heart is throbbing because I have come
back to you? I am glad. I went away without a word in the hope that
by so doing I should punish you for your cruelty in tempting and
tantalising me as you did at Auchinleven."