'Surely you never, at any time, loved this man Mattei Guebhard?' 'I never did so,' said she, emphatically; 'but, I once said before, I could not help him loving me. I have never loved anyone; and moreover I shall never--marry!' Now Cecil had known and seen enough of the world to be aware that when a handsome young woman declares her intention of never marrying, it becomes one of the broadest hints a man can receive; and, under all the circumstances, he heard her now with a perplexity that bordered on irritation. At such a time cold reason might suggest that Mary Montgomerie, and his country too, were lost to him for ever! In Servia was his new home; Margarita was beautiful, anxious to serve him and to win his gratitude--too evidently his love, if she could. Just rage at Guebhard invited him to meet her half-way; but the image of Mary came before Cecil, and he thought: 'Montrose was right in his song--"Love one, and love no more!"' He was perfectly conscious that some time or other, at Palenka, he _had_ spoken of love to Margarita; but was then referring to his love of Mary Montgomerie; while she had believed that he was in some curious way pleading his own cause with herself. There was even now a struggle going on in the heart of Margarita, between her mind and her affections; and though eventually it seemed as if the latter would conquer, some sense of propriety, of what society and training inculcated, and the moral force of her own spirit, did battle against them; and then, moreover, she was not without some dread of her brother the Count of Palenka. Despite all this, and her recent coquettish announcement that she could never love, and would never marry any man, Cecil found her coming to the point with him and taking the initiative, piqued perhaps that he was the only man she had never yet subdued; and so, before he knew very well how it had all come to pass, or by what she had prefaced it, he was startled by her saying in her most dulcet Servian: 'So you think, dear Cecil, I could make your life a happy one?' She asked this softly, yet a little imperiously, while flicking the skirt of her riding-habit impatiently with her switch, and with downcast looks, as Cecil paused in perplexity, thinking, 'What had he said to draw this forth?' 'Surely I am not so uncivilised; I don't ever paint and powder, like all the English girls I saw at Vienna!' she added. 'But,' said poor Cecil, who thought he had perils enough to encounter, without thus being 'run to earth,' and having this perplexity added to them, by an impulsive girl, who probably had something Hungarian and Italian in her blood, inherited from the old heyduc; 'but they don't all wear paint and powder--and one girl I knew at home certainly did not do so.' This was, to say the least of it, an unfortunate speech. 'One,' said Margarita, with a flash in her eyes; 'who was she?'