“Dance! The daughter of the Viceroy tossing her feet about?” ejaculates the duenna. “Pooh!” laughs the girl archly. “Have I not posed for Señor Oliver’s Madonna—in bare feet too. Some day I am to make Señor Antony celebrated, or, rather, he will make me worshiped by his genius and his altar piece.” “You posed for your foot” murmurs Guy, casting an enraptured glance at the exquisite member the girl displays as she still holds the Gitana attitude. “Yes, I hope he painted them small enough to please you,” laughs the young lady. “But sit down at the spinet, Señorita Mina, and play for me so that I may enrapture the Countess de Pariza by dancing,” adds Doña Hermoine, looking archly at her duenna, who seems to have lost her appetite for Terpsichore. To this, the dragon says sharply: “Since Juffrouw Bodé Volcker is indisposed to repeat for me the pleasure of last evening, I will go into her father’s shop and see if there are any bargains to-day in Lyons silks and velvets and the lace of Venice.” “There should be,” remarks Oliver, suggestively. “Great bargains! The damage from the flood must have cheapened everything.” “Bargains! Come, let me see,” and La Pariza would call her two Moorish attendants, but Guy, who has been wishing her God-speed in his heart ever since she has entered, very politely opens the door for her departure across the courtyard to the warerooms of the merchant. Doña Hermoine has apparently not come on a shopping expedition, at least not for laces and dress goods; she does not accompany her duenna, but remains standing, a picture of grace, in the attitude she has taken for the dance. “You don’t care for new costumes, Doña de Alva,” remarks Guy dreamily, the beauty of the girl’s pose enchanting him, as well it may, for the young lady wears some soft clinging costume of southern Spain with Moorish effects in it, that outlines her lithe graceful beauty in every curve, and, swept up by one dainty hand, permits a suspicion of ankle so exquisite in proportion and symmetry that poets would dream over it—but this audacious sailor simply loves it. “No, why should I? I have dozens I never use, and papa would give me a thousand if I were foolish enough to want them,” replies Doña Hermoine, resigning Gitana attitude and sweeping her Moorish jupe upon the floor again. “He gives me everything I ask for.” Then she remarks naively: “You have discovered my name—that I am the daughter of the Viceroy, Captain Guido Amati. You—you see I have discovered your name. Or rather I should say, Major Guido Amati.” “Major?” “Yes; promoted since noon!” “But your father—?” “Oh, I told him nothing about it. You are absent without leave. Neither did I tell Sancho d’Avila, who is colonel of your regiment in the absence of Romero in Spain. But there was a vacancy, and it was easily granted to Captain Guido Amati, who, I am informed, is the bravest officer in the army, or one of the bravest. That is all that can be said for any man under Alva.”