"No, no, a thousand times, no!" Don Carlos cried. "I was desolated when you refused to dance with me last night, and you put me to the torture later in the conservatory. I wanted to murder the other man, the one in particular on whom you bestowed your favours." "Dear me! What a bloodthirsty creature! Incidentally, are you not still attempting to make love indirectly? I suppose making love has become a sort of second nature, and you do not know you are breaking your promise?" "I stand rebuked, sweet lady, and crave your pardon," said Don Carlos. "Never yet have I consciously broken a promise. And let me remind you that I have made you several promises." "Several?" repeated Myra, raising her eyebrows inquiringly. "Yes, you may remember that the first time we danced together I promised to awaken your heart and fire it with the passion which now consumes me," replied Don Carlos quietly. "I have promised several times since to make you my own, to make you surrender to the call of love and confess yourself conquered." "Those, I presume, were promises made to yourself," Myra retorted lightly. "We all promise ourselves things, and hope for things, we know at heart we shall never get." "I have told you it was prophesied that I should get my heart's desire, and also that I have won the reputation of getting anything on which I set my heart." "As far as I am concerned, you have won the reputation of being the most conceited and audacious man in Europe," commented Myra, turning away from him with a careless laugh. CHAPTER VI It was Tony Standish who found himself practically ignored by Myra after dinner that evening, and almost for the first time he began to feel jealous, really jealous, of Don Carlos de Ruiz. Myra danced three times with the Spaniard, and "sat out" two more with him in the conservatory, flagrantly flirting with him, exercising all her powers of attraction and fascination, continually tempting Don Carlos to break his promise. His dark eyes told her that she had fired his heart and set his pulses throbbing with desire, but no word of love crossed his lips. When they were dancing together, however, more than once he crushed her close to his breast, but Myra did not rebuke him, and several times she squeezed his hand and deliberately brushed his cheek with her hair during a Tango. "I rather fancy I am going to justify my boast and take my revenge, and Don Carlos de Ruiz will learn to his cost that it isn't safe to trifle with Myra Rostrevor," she reflected. "I suppose I am taking an unfair advantage, but it serves Don Carlos right."