I passed over the thrust. "You have been nowhere. It must have been dull." "Less so than may be thought. I have spent much of my time in the company of Mrs. Merry." "Lord have mercy upon us!" I mocked. "If you have been imbibing the opinions of the Lady of the British Legation--!" "I have heard some sharp truths regarding the ridiculousness of your republican regime." "And could tell of as many, from your own observation, regarding the Court of St. James." It was a chance shot, but it hit the mark. "I had not thought you so quick," she said, with a note of sincerity under the mockery. "I am not quick, senorita," I replied. "It is no more than the reflection of your own wit." "That does not ring true." "It is true that you raise me above my dull self." "Have I said that I have found you dull?" "I have never succeeded in acquiring the modish smartness of the gallants and the wits." "That, senor, is beyond the power of a man to acquire." I looked for mockery in her eyes, and saw only gravity. The scarlet lips were curved in scorn, but not of myself. "It is only those born as brainless magpies who can chatter. You were right when you said that I could tell of truths from my own observation. I left England with as little regret as I shall--" "Do not say it, senorita!" I protested. "You Americans! You have the persistence of the British, with no small share of French alertness!" "We are a mixed people--" I began. "Mongrel!" she thrust at me, with a flash of hauteur. "Not so ill a name for a race," I replied. "History tells of a people called Iberians. The Ph[oe]nicians and Carthagenians landed on their shores. Then came the Romans; later, the barbaric hordes from the North,--Goths, Vandals, Suevi; later still, the Moors." The last was too much for her restraint. "Moors!--Moors! Mohammedan slaves!" she exclaimed. "We drove them out--man, woman, and child--before your land was so much as discovered." "Yet not before they had done what little could be done toward civilizing barbaric Europe, and not before their blood had mingled--" "_Santisima Virgen!_" she cried, in a passion which was all the more striking for the restraint that held it in leash--"I, a daughter of such blood!--you say it?" "I do not say it, senorita," I replied, with such steadiness as I could command under the flashing anger of her glance. "Then what?" she demanded. "I spoke of your race in general, senorita. There are self-evident facts. Even were the fact which you so abhor true as to yourself, would your eyes be any the less wondrously glorious? Your dusky hair--" She burst into a rippling laugh, more musical than the notes of any instrument. "_Santa Maria!_" she murmured. "You miss few opportunities--for an Anglo-American!" "A man asks only for reasonable opportunities, senorita,--a fair field and no favors." "The last is easy to grant." "You mean--?" "No favors." She had me hard. I rallied as best I could. "But a fair field--?"