The Lady Superior bent a quick sharp look upon the pair, but Rollo was grave and high of demeanour as became the envoy of a King, while Concha sat at her embroidery as demure as a mouse. She had gone back to her frame and was engaged in elaborating the wings of a cherub of exceedingly celestial aspect, in whom all the parts below the shoulder-blades had been suppressed by order of the Lady Superior of the Convent of the Holy Innocents. "You will do your best, Concha," she said gravely, admonishing that maiden with her forefinger, "to further the objects of this young man. And, above all, be sure to show him the deference due to his rank and mission!" "Yes, my Lady Superior!" said little Concha Cabezos, "I will treat him as if he were the King's own high majesty in person!" "A very proper spirit!" said the Prioress, nodding and going out; "cultivate it, my young friend!" "I will!" said little Concha, and dropped a curtsey behind her back, which, alas! was not without a certain wicked suggestion of contempt for kings and dignitaries and their emissaries. CHAPTER XVIII A FLUTTER OF RED AND WHITE "At your ambassadorial service!" said the Senorita Concha, bowing still lower and holding out her skirts at either side with a prettyish exaggeration of deference; "what commands has your Scottish Excellency for poor little Concha?" "Ahem!" said Rollo, more than a little puzzled, "they were not so much commands as--as--I thought you might be able to help me." "Now we are getting at it," said Concha Cabezos, nodding with a wise air. ("I must be on my guard with this girl," thought Rollo, "I can almost bring myself to believe that--yet it seems impossible--that--the girl is chaffing me--me!") "I wished to see you," he went on. The girl curtsied again, bringing her hands together in a little appeal almost childish. It looked natural, yet Rollo was not sure. But at any rate the sensation was a new one. He began to think of what he had heard in the venta. But no, the girl looked so sweet and demure, such babyish smiles flickered and dimpled about the mouth--all scented of fresh youth like a June hayfield. No, she--she must have been traduced. Not that it mattered in the least to him. He was cased in triple steel. His heart was adamant. Or at least as much of it as he had not left in the possession of Peggy Ramsay, and, when he came to think of it, of several others. "You were wishful to see me, sir?" murmured little Concha, "a great gentleman wanting to see me--wonderful--impossible." "Neither one nor yet the other," said Rollo, a trifle sharply, looking at the girl with a glance intended to suppress any lurking tendency to levity; "if I desired to see you, it was not on my own account, but upon the King's service." He raised his voice at the last words.