Her eyes met Antonio's. This time it was he who colored up and fell into confusion. The only reply he could think of was a stilted compliment. "The Senhorita does me a great and an undeserved honor," he stammered. "Don't," she commanded, with an impatient gesture. "When you talk like that I hate you. Be sincere. Besides, I'm not a Senhorita. If I were a Senhorita I should have jet-black hair and big sentimental eyes, and I should never walk more than a mile in my life, and I should no more dream of meeting you like this than of dancing on a boa-constrictor. Are you going to talk like that any more? If so, we'll go home this minute and you can do it on the way." Antonio had met his match. If Isabel had been a man he could have met imperiousness with imperiousness, sarcasm with sarcasm, demand with demand, until he had established his will. But Isabel mastered him. He could only stand before her, like a refined and handsome José, awaiting orders. "What you must understand is this," she said. "You have promised to come and talk to me now and then, while my father is in Lisbon. You've promised, and I want you to do it. I must talk to somebody sometimes, mustn't I? But I'd rather not have you at all than have any more times like Friday afternoon with Mrs. Baxter. You may think that, because she finished the story of her life on Friday, you've got the worst of it over; but you haven't. You've still to hear about the dear Marchioness of Witheringfield. Mrs. Baxter didn't know the dear Marchioness from Eve; but the tale will take an hour, all the same. Also, you've to hear how Mrs. Baxter lost the Baxter jewels, which she never possessed; and how she undermined her health nursing me through a month's fever, though it was really only a two-days' cold in the head; and how she rescued the little Viscount Datton from a burning house, which she never saw in her life. Don't think me spiteful. I simply can't stand it. Of course, you must put up with Mrs. Baxter once in a while; but, speaking generally, if you're coming any more to talk to me, I want you to talk to me here, at this pool, in the mornings." "If I come here, to this pool, in the mornings," asked Antonio, who had recovered himself, "how do you know that I shan't inflict on you a string of histories as long as Mrs. Baxter's?" Although he did not mean to fish for a compliment, his ears expected some pleasing reply; and he was a little crestfallen when she replied brusquely: "Perhaps you will. Only don't you see, they will be histories I haven't heard fifty times already. Come to-morrow morning. Now we ought to be going. It must be close on four o'clock." III