Over joined her, and as the two gray, harmonious figures walked down the street Catalina turned suddenly and looked at the pension. The girl in white was leaning from one of the upper windows. But this time the cool gray eyes had no message for one of her own sex. They dwelt upon the Englishman’s military and distinguished back. Catalina thrilled to the vague music of unrest deep in some unexplored nook of her being. The second response was a snapping eye which she turned upon Over. “I met an American girl as I was coming out that I have taken a dislike to,” she announced. “She has a most absurd patronizing manner, and looks as if she were trying to be the great lady but couldn’t quite make it. I prefer the Moultons, who are frankly suburban.” “I thought the Moultons very jolly—poor souls. I suppose they have reached the haven of an Atlantic liner by this.” “Did you see that girl?” asked Catalina, sharply. “What girl? Oh, in the pension, just now. I passed a rather stunning girl on the stairs—but there are so many girls! Shall we wander about outside a bit before getting the tickets?” The great red towers of the Alhambra were before them, and Catalina forgot the Unknown. There happened to be no one else in the Plaza de los Aljibes as they entered it, and the afternoon was very warm and still. They lingered between the hedges of myrtle, the flower best beloved of the Moor, and disdaining the upstart palace of Charles V. looked wonderingly at the featureless wall that hid so much beauty, and in its time had secluded from the vulgar the daily life and gorgeous state of the most picturesque court in Europe, and such harems of varied loveliness as never will be seen again. Only the Tower of Comares, rising sheer from the northern wall of the Assabica Hill, is as visible from the plaza, as from the courts, of whose life it was once a part. “It was from that window that the Sultana Ayxa la Horra, the mother of Boabdil el Chico, let him down to the Darro with a rope made of shawls so that he could escape from Granada before his dreadful old father murdered him,” volunteered Catalina. “But of course you have read all about it—there never was a more delicious book than _The Conquest of Granada_.” “Never heard of it, and am densely ignorant of the whole thing. You will have to coach me, as usual.” “Then I suppose you don’t know that we should have no Alhambra to-day—hardly one stone on another—if it hadn’t been for Irving—an American! How do you like that?” “You know I have no race jealousy, and I had just as lief it had been Irving as any other Johnny. What difference does it make, anyhow? We have the Alhambra. It’s like bothering about who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.” “That doesn’t interest you?” “Not a bit. The plays don’t much, for that matter. I’m glad our literature has them, but all that sort of speculation seems to me a crying waste of time and mental energy. Let’s have the lecture. What did you say your black’s name was?”