"There is no enmity in my heart against you, Messire," she rejoined calmly, "and I crave your pardon that I did so far forget myself as to speak of don Ramon to you. I’ll not transgress in that way in future, that I promise you. You have no love for me--you never can have any, meseems: you are a Netherlander, I a Spaniard: our every thoughts lie as asunder as the poles. You obey your father, and I mine; our hands will be clasped, but our hearts can never meet. Had you not been so callous, it might have been different: I might have looked upon you as a friend, and not a mere tool for the accomplishment of my country’s destiny.... And now may I beg of you not to prolong this interview.... Would we had not tried to understand one another, for meseems we have fallen into graver misunderstandings than before." "When may I see you again?" asked Mark van Rycke, with coolness now quite equal to hers. "Every day until our wedding, Messire, in the presence of my aunt, donna Inez de Salgado, as the custom of my country allows." "I shall look forward to the wild excitement of these daily meetings," he said, quite unable to suppress the laughter which danced in his grey eyes. She took no notice of the gentle raillery, but dismissed him with a gracious nod. "Shall I tell señor de Vargas," he asked, "that you are alone?" "No, no," she replied hastily. "I prefer to be alone for a little while. I pray you to leave me." He bowed before her with all the stiffness and formality which Spanish etiquette demanded, then he turned away from her, and soon she lost sight of his broad shoulders in the midst of the gayest groups in the crowd. VIII The interview with her future husband had not left donna Lenora any happier or more contented with her lot. The callousness which he had shown in accepting a fiancée like a bale of valueless goods was equally apparent in his attitude after this first introduction to her. The poor girl’s heart was heavy. She had had so little experience of the world, and none at all of men. Already at an early age she had become motherless; all the care and the tenderness which she had ever known was from the father whose pride in her beauty was far greater than his love for his child. A rigid convent education had restrained the development of her ideals and of her aspirations; at nineteen years of age the dominating thought in her was service to her King and country, loyalty and obedience to her father and to the Church.