She looked up quickly, puzzled and searching. The words were oddly familiar, stirred a chord of memory. Her mind flew back; she stared at Don Diego, but she saw instead a laughing face, with eyes of deep, wind-swept blue.... "Do you suppose, señor, that your daughter will take wine from my hands?..." A tremor shook her. Her eyes shut for a moment, as though to hold the brief vision. She opened them again, and the _Venture's_ stateroom slid back into the past. "I thank you, cousin," she said quietly, and picked up the cup with a steady hand. She ate sparingly, drank less, and answered in monosyllables Don Diego's easy flow of talk. Sweetmeats were at last set on the table, and some ripe pomegranates from the south. Luis withdrew, and they were alone. She pushed back her chair a little way from the table, and turned her gaze towards Don Diego. "Cousin, I await your explanation." He lifted his cup in a silent toast. "It is contained in the one short phrase, my dear. I love you." "You have an odd way of showing me, señor, that you love me. May I not rather suppose that you love my possessions?" He frowned at that; he had not his mother's frankness. "They are as nothing beside your charms, Dominica." "I fear you flatter me, cousin." He leaned towards her, stretched a pleading hand across the table. "Let us not bandy idle words to and fro, Dominica. Believe I am mad for you!" "It does not strain my credence to believe you mad, señor." "I am mad, yes, but for love of you. No, let me speak! You do me wrong when you think me anxious only to possess your wealth. I do not deny that was my first thought. But I did not know you then; you had not cast your divine spell over me. I would wed you were you penniless." He saw that she was about to break in on this, and hurried on. "There seemed to be no way but this. I took the straight, swift road to my desires. You shall not blame me for that. You are angry now, outraged; I see your eyes flame. Think but a little and you will pity me, understand my seeming madness!" "I might pity your folly, señor, but pity will not work on me to wed with you," she said. "Dominica!" He tried to take her hand, but it was swiftly withdrawn. "I should be loth to use force. You shall learn to love me, even if you hate me now. Put this English pirate out of your head----" "Oh, God's mercy, señor, still harping on that fairy tale?" she exclaimed. "You put me out of all patience!" "He is sped," he insisted. "There is no escape for such as he. Set him aside; forget him." She looked at him fully now, almost sternly. "Señor cousin, you talk without meaning, but if the Chevalier de Guise were my lover, and he El Beauvallet, I would be faithful to him though he died and I faced death because of him." An ugly look leaped into his eyes. "You speak very strongly, cousin. There are some things harder to face than death."