CHAPTER III
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, senor," 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 ident.i.ty, Aunt Clarissa,"
interposed Myra. "Senor 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. a.s.suredly 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 pa.s.sionate love to me, and only made fun of my attempts to snub him. I hope you won"t invite the horrible creature here again."
Lady Fermanagh regarded her in amazement for a few moments, then dissolved into laughter.
"Oh, you modern girls!" she exclaimed. "You think you know such a lot and are so advanced, yet you are as easily scared or fooled as any country maiden in Victorian times."
"My dear aunt, Don Carlos de Ruiz can neither scare nor fool me,"
protested Myra; "but surely I have a right to object to his attempting to make love to me when he knows I am engaged to Tony Standish."
"Remember he is a Spaniard, my dear," said her aunt, with a tolerant smile. "The greatest compliment a Latin can pay a woman is to make love to her--and the majority make love merely by way of being complimentary. Don Carlos de Ruiz probably makes love to every woman he meets, which very likely explains why he is so popular. Why, my dear, he almost made love to me!"
"But he didn"t tell you he wanted to marry you, did he, Aunt Clarissa, swear he would win you by hook or by crook, and vow that Old Nick himself would not prevent him from making you his own?" inquired Myra, beginning to smile again.
Lady Fermanagh laughed heartily.
"No, my dear, he certainly did not go as far as that," she answered.
"You don"t mean to tell me he actually said something to that effect to you?"
"Yes, both last night at the dance, and again a few minutes ago--and he said it as if he meant it. I have half a mind to ask Tony to tell the arrogantly conceited Spaniard not to pester me with his attentions again."
"My dear child, don"t make yourself ridiculous by doing anything so foolish. You need not take Don Carlos too seriously. He is very much a man of the world, probably something of a Don Juan, and likely makes love as a pastime. I met many of his type when your Uncle was in the Diplomatic Service--wealthy bachelors who made love to almost every pretty woman they met, provided always, however, that the woman was married or engaged, and there was no danger of being caught in the matrimonial net. I should say, my dear, judging from my experience, that Don Carlos probably would only have paid you compliments instead of making love to you, if he had not known you were engaged."
"That sort of philanderer deserves to be kicked or horsewhipped, Aunt Clarissa, for making a mockery of love."
"Oh, I don"t know about that, my dear Myra. After all, as I have told you, men of the Latin races make love almost indiscriminately by way of paying a compliment, and pretty women in Spain, Italy, or France, would feel quite insulted if the men to whom they were introduced did not profess to be hopelessly in love with them. If you had lived abroad, Myra, you would feel flattered rather than annoyed."
"Maybe--and maybe not," said Myra, with a toss of her red-gold head.
"If you are right, then Don Carlos is merely trying to amuse himself at my expense. I have no use for a professional philanderer who imagines that no woman can resist him. Him and his King of the Gypsies prophecy! Pouf!"
Yet as she dressed for dinner a little later she found herself recalling the pa.s.sionate words of Don Carlos, remembering the ardent light in his dark eyes, the vibrant note in his deep, musical voice, found herself wondering, wondering, and wishing with all her heart that Tony Standish was a little more like Don Carlos de Ruiz.
"I"m not scared of him, and I am certainly not going to lose my heart to him," Myra whispered to her reflection in the mirror. "If Aunt Clarissa is right, he is only making love to me for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, and would sheer off if I took him seriously and expected him to marry me. A pretty fool I should look if I fell in love with him, broke off my engagement to Tony, and then Don Carlos levanted! But I"m not going to fall in love with him.... He certainly is fascinating, and he would be a wonderful lover if he were in earnest, but he can"t make a fool of Myra Rostrevor. I"ll show the conceited creature that there is one girl at least who does not find him irresistible, and I"ll give him the cold shoulder again at the first opportunity."
Yet again she had the opportunity sooner than she had expected. Almost it seemed as if the fates were playing into the hands of Don Carlos.
That very evening Myra discovered, to her inward consternation, that Don Carlos de Ruiz was the guest of honour at the dinner-dance to which she had been invited, and her hostess, finding they had met before, placed them together at the dinner table.
"Truly, the G.o.ds are good, fair lady!" exclaimed Don Carlos, his dark eyes sparkling. "I am the most fortunate of men to have so lovely and charming a partner. And I think I have reason to congratulate myself on contriving to surprise you twice within a few hours."
"A very unpleasant surprise," commented Myra coldly. "After what happened an hour or two ago, I should have begged to be excused from this party if I had known you would be present."
"Alas! senorita, it is sad to find you still rebelling against destiny," said Don Carlos. "Yet I am flattered, for your desire to avoid me does but prove you are afraid of losing your heart to me, and you know that only by avoiding me can you delay the day of surrender."
"Sure, senor, if conceit were a disease you would have died of it long since," retorted Myra, and turned to talk to the man on her other side.
She ignored Don Carlos completely for some time, but she found herself listening to his deep, musical voice as he chatted to his hostess and modestly acknowledged compliments fired at him across the table by a polo enthusiast. When common politeness at last compelled her to turn to speak to him again, it was to find his eyes still twinkling mischievously.
"A thousand thanks, senorita, for giving me the opportunity of admiring your beautiful back for so long," he said in a low voice. "It is flawless. Your skin is smooth as polished marble, yet soft and sweet as the petals of a rose."
"Your compliments are becoming tedious, senor," Myra remarked, a.s.suming an air of boredom. "Am I expected to endure this kind of talk all evening?"
"All the days of your life, I hope, senorita," Don Carlos answered calmly. "In the intervals of making love to you, Myra, I shall sing the praises of your beauty even after you are all mine."
"Don Carlos, you are quite impossible!" exclaimed Myra. "I warn you again I shall take precautions to avoid you in future if you persist in this folly."
"That will necessitate your cancelling all your engagements, or nearly all of them, for the rest of the season," responded Don Carlos.
"Already I have contrived to obtain an invitation to practically every function at which you are likely to be present. Your aunt was good enough to show me your engagement book this afternoon. Dear lady, I a.s.sure you that you will find it difficult to avoid me."
Myra fancied he was boasting again, but he was stating facts, as she subsequently discovered. At practically every Society function she attended during the next few weeks, save for a few private parties, Don Carlos de Ruiz was a fellow guest, and invariably he contrived to talk to her and make love, even when Tony Standish was also present, and ignored the snubs and rebuffs she administered.
"Sure, and I"m beginning to feel something like the fox must feel when the hounds are in full cry after him," soliloquised Myra, as she drove home one night after another vain attempt to rebuff Don Carlos. "No wonder he is able to boast of so many conquests if he has pursued every other woman who took his fancy as relentlessly as he is pursuing me!
What can I do?"
What made Myra"s position the more embarra.s.sing was that de Ruiz and Standish had become very friendly, Don Carlos having exercised his personal magnetism to the utmost to win Tony"s regard. One hobby they actually had in common was collecting old jade, and on discovering this Don Carlos sent to Spain for two of the choicest and rarest of his pieces--ancient Chinese sword ornaments of jade set with gold. These he presented to Tony, who was delighted, but protested that he could not accept so valuable a gift without making some return.
"Later, I promise you, my dear Standish, I shall take one of your treasures," said Don Carlos in his charming way. "Meanwhile accept these trifles as a token of my esteem. It is a joy to give to a fellow collector something which money cannot buy, and it will be a delight to take from you something you prize. By the way, let me remind you again of your promise to come to my place in Spain this winter to see my collection. I shall be pleased and honoured to entertain you and any of your friends at El Castillo de Ruiz."
"Thanks. Frightfully good of you, Don Carlos," said Tony. "If I make my usual cruise in my yacht this year I shall certainly make a point of visiting you. I say, if you are not already booked, what about doing me the honour of being one of my guests at Auchinleven in August for the shooting, and then being one of the yachting party later on if I arrange a cruise. I shall be charmed if you will."
"My dear Mr. Standish, you are too good," exclaimed Don Carlos, with unaffected delight. "Ten thousand thanks! Nothing will give me greater pleasure. I gladly and gratefully accept your invitation, but you must promise to allow me to attempt to return your hospitality in Spain. I cannot promise you much in the way of sport, except, perhaps, a little brigand shooting, but I can promise you some novel experiences."
"Thanks awfully," said Tony. "I must tell Myra, and show her your beautiful present."
Myra gazed at her fiance in wide-eyed amazement and consternation when she heard the news.