Don Carlos’s eyebrows rose still higher, his lips twitched, and Tony Standish got the impression that it was only with difficulty he was refraining from laughing outright. That angered him, and his ruddy face became still redder.

“Well, what have you to say for yourself?” he demanded, after a pause. “This is no laughing matter.”

“My dear Mr. Standish, what can I say for myself?” Don Carlos retorted, quietly and gravely. “Your demand for an explanation places me in a most embarrassing position. How should one answer in the circumstances. If Miss Rostrevor has told you I have been making love to her, I cannot deny the accusation without casting doubt on the word of the most charming and beautiful girl in the world. Yet if I admit that Miss Rostrevor is justified in her accusation, you may decide I have been acting dishonourably, and I shall lose your friendship. Condenación! Was ever man placed in such an awkward position!”

“Look here, you will certainly make matters worse if you dare to insinuate that Myra was not telling the truth,” exclaimed Standish hotly.

“I quite appreciate that, my dear Mr. Standish, and I realise, also, that Miss Rostrevor would be justified in hating me if I dared to cast doubt on her assertions,” said Don Carlos more gravely than ever, with a sigh and a shrug. “So I must, perforce, confess that I have been making persistent love to Miss Rostrevor ever since I first met her, and well, I am quite prepared to take the consequences. How do you deal with such a situation in England? In my country we would fight a duel, and the lady would marry the survivor. Should you think of fighting a duel, however, Mr. Standish, it is only fair to warn you that I am an expert swordsman and a dead shot. How shall we deal with the matter?”

Baffled, and at a loss to know how to deal with the situation, Tony Standish glowered at him, with the uncomfortable sensation that he was making a fool of himself, and that Don Carlos was inwardly laughing at him.

“It isn’t a matter to jest about,” he said stiffly. “That sort of thing isn’t done in England, and I must ask you to refrain from approaching Miss Rostrevor again.”

“I am desolated, senor!” exclaimed Don Carlos, with a despairing gesture. “I find it difficult to understand the English conventionalities in the matter of love-making. If you were Spanish, my dear Standish, you would not complain of my making love to your betrothed unless you were unsure of her and were afraid of my winning her away from you. If you regard me as a dangerous rival, and the adorable Miss Rostrevor takes me seriously, and you are afraid ”

“That isn’t the point, Don Carlos,” hastily interposed Tony, beginning to regret having made so much fuss. “I er I am willing to believe that you have not seriously been trying to steal Myra’s affections away from me, or that possibly Myra may have taken you too seriously.”

“How can a mere man hope to read what is in the heart of a woman?” responded Don Carlos, helping himself to a cigarette. “Our Spanish girls, if they think an accepted lover is not sufficiently devoted and attentive, will complain that another man is making passionate love thus arousing the lover’s jealousy and re-firing him with ardour; and a married woman will invent a lover and complain of his attentions for the same reason, if her husband’s love seems to be cooling.”

“I say, Don Carlos, are you suggesting that Myra complained for that reason because she thinks I’m not keen enough?”

“My dear Standish, I am not suggesting anything. I am merely trying to explain the psychology of the women of my own country as I understand it. Yet I doubt if Englishwomen differ very greatly, after all, from their Latin sisters where affairs of the heart are concerned. Won’t you have a cigarette?”

Tony accepted a cigarette from the silver-and-cedar-wood box that was slid across the table to him, and he lit it with thoughtful deliberation. Had Myra complained about Don Carlos making love to her just to keep him “up to scratch,” he was wondering, and found himself more puzzled than ever. He knew that lots of men had been, and probably still were, in love with Myra, and that fact made him the more proud to be her accepted lover. He recalled Myra’s boast that there was no horse or man she could not master, and he found it a little difficult to believe she was really scared of Don Carlos.

“In my country, Mr. Standish, a man betrothed to a girl as beautiful as Miss Rostrevor would feel almost insulted if his friends did not openly envy him and protest themselves hopelessly in love with the young lady he had won,” resumed Don Carlos. “The lady herself would feel slighted if the friends of her betrothed did not continue to attempt to make love to her. To profess to be heartbroken because she belongs to another, and to make love to a betrothed girl or a married woman, is surely paying an indirect compliment to the accepted lover or husband, as well as a direct compliment to the lady.”

“Humph! I hadn’t thought of it that way,” commented Tony drily. “It would never have occurred to me for a moment that in making love to Myra you were paying me any sort of compliment. Here in England, Don Carlos, any man who persists in making love to an engaged girl or a married woman is asking for trouble. Of course, I can appreciate the fact that most women would feel flattered by the thought that a man like you had fallen in love with them, even if you were only pretending out of a desire to be polite, but er well, obviously Myra appears to be more annoyed than flattered. Perhaps, as I said before, she has taken you too seriously.”

“Or possibly not seriously enough,” responded Don Carlos, his grave face crinkling into a smile. “I am hopelessly in love with her, my dear Standish, and mean to make her fall in love with me. What are we going to do in the circumstances?”

“Really, I don’t know, Don Carlos,” answered Standish, deciding that the other was jesting. “It’s frightfully awkward. Frightfully! Er you see, old chap, Myra says she won’t come to Auchinleven for the shooting if you are going to be one of the party, and er well, as you can understand, that places me in a frightfully awkward position.”

“I fully realise that, Mr. Standish,” said Don Carlos very gravely, after a long pause which increased Tony’s embarrassment. “I, also, am now placed in an awkward position. I have told many of my friends and acquaintances to-day that I have been invited to Auchinleven for the shooting by my friend Mr. Antony Standish, and now I shall have to explain to everyone that the invitation is cancelled because my friend fears I shall continue to make love to his fiancee, and Miss Rostrevor fears I may abduct her, persuade her to elope with me, or something of the sort. Yes, decidedly a difficult situation!”

“Here, I say, Don Carlos, you’ll make me and Myra the laughing-stock of London if you tell people that!” Tony protested, looking quite distressed. “Myra will be furious with me and with you, and er I I suppose you are thinking I am a mean sort of skunk. I’m frightfully sorry! I say, old chap, can’t you suggest some way out of the difficulty?”

“Well, possibly if I were permitted to have a talk with Miss Rostrevor, and explain why I have been making love to her, she might understand matters better and raise no objection to my figuring as a guest at Auchinleven,” said Don Carlos, after another thoughtful pause.

“Jolly good idea!” Tony exclaimed. “I’m quite sure if you explained matters tactfully to Myra she would understand you have really only been trying to pay her compliments. Myra’s a good sort, and I feel sure she will accept your explanation.”

Don Carlos made no immediate response. He dropped his cigarette into an ash-tray, rose to his feet with a sigh, and strolled to the window of his sitting room to gaze out absently across the Green Park.

“’There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid,’” he said at length, as if to himself. “So it is written in the Book of Proverbs.”

“Er I say, old chap, I I hope you are not going to take this too much to heart,” remarked Tony, again feeling puzzled and uncomfortable. “If only Myra understands and appreciates what your love-making meant ”

“I shall be happy provided she responds in the way I desire,” broke in Don Carlos, swinging round suddenly from the window, his face lighting up into a smile again. “Of course, if Miss Rostrevor is afraid of me, or if you are afraid I shall take her from you and desire to cancel your invitation on that account, I ”

“There isn’t any question of that, Don Carlos,” Tony interrupted in turn. “At least, I er I don’t think Myra is afraid of you. I fancy she has merely misunderstood your intentions.”

“I should not have imagined that to be possible,” said Don Carlos. “However, when I have discussed the situation with the charming lady, perhaps she will decide to allow me to be a guest at Auchinleven. I warn you, my dear Standish, that I shall not promise to refrain from making love to her, and will continue to try to win her heart. I think I can take the risk of your challenging me to mortal combat.”

He looked with a challenging smile at Tony, who laughed, imagining that he was making a jest of the whole affair.

“I hardly fancy it will be a case of ’pistols for two; coffee for one,’” Tony said; “and I feel sure you will be able to make peace with Myra. As a matter of fact, Don Carlos, I am beginning to wonder now if Myra has been pulling my leg. She has played jokes on me more than once before and made me feel rather an ass.”

“Perhaps on this occasion the charming lady is playing a joke on both of us,” suggested Don Carlos lightly. “Let us drink a toast to her together, although we are such deadly rivals.”

He slid the decanter across the table invitingly, and Tony helped himself to a drink, still imagining that Don Carlos was jesting, and deciding that Myra had again made him feel “rather an ass.”

“Cheerio!” he drawled, raising his glass after Don Carlos had poured himself a drink. “All the best!”

“The toast is Miss Myra Rostrevor, the loveliest and most adorable girl in the world, and may her lover get his heart’s desire,” cried Don Carlos gaily, and drained his glass.

“Thanks awfully!” said Tony. “It’s frightfully good of you, my dear chap, not to take offence, and I feel sure you will be able to win Myra over.”

“It is my most ardent desire to win Myra over, my dear Standish,” said Don Carlos, as Tony rose to go. “Pray convey to her my most respectful salutations, and beg her to receive me this afternoon.”

It was with mingled amusement and exasperation that Myra listened to Tony’s account of the interview. She could not help feeling that Don Carlos had turned the tables on Tony, and now had it in his power to make her look ridiculous.

“I think he is the most conceited and impudent man in the world,” she commented. “And he’s clever! If I refuse to go to Auchinleven, he will tell the world it is because I am afraid of falling in love with him. If you withdraw your invitation to him, he will explain it is because you are afraid he might persuade me to elope with him. He will flatter himself we are both afraid of him, and the affair will become the joke of the season.”

“Yes, I realise that, Myra,” drawled Tony. “He’s got that laugh on us, so to speak, and I think it would be best to save our faces by pretending the whole affair was a sort of practical joke on your part. I don’t suppose he’ll try to make love to you again, and even if he does you will know he is not in earnest.”

“Tony, you duffer, let me assure you he is very much in earnest, and he means to take me from you,” said Myra. “And I warn you, my dear, that I should probably have fallen for him and jilted you if he wasn’t so inordinately proud of himself and hadn’t boasted that he would compel me to love him. As it is, I am not sure that I am not in love with him.”

“I say, Myra, you’re not pulling my leg again, are you?” asked Tony, tugging at his little sandy moustache and looking worried. “I’m in a frightfully awkward position, as I said before. I like the chap immensely, and I think he’s too much of a gentleman to poach although, of course, foreigners have a different code of morals from us, and aren’t to be trusted where women are concerned. I er I don’t quite know what to do, but, of course, I’ll do anything rather than risk losing you.”

There flashed into his mind as he spoke Don Carlos’s remark concerning women complaining of another man’s attentions in order to bring a husband or a lover “up to scratch,” and he had what he would have described as a “brain wave.”

“I say, I’ve got a bright idea, darling,” he continued, before Myra could speak. “Let’s solve the difficulty by getting married at once. I’ll get a special licence, and we’ll set a new fashion by entertaining a house party in the Highlands during our honeymoon. Even the boldest man would surely hesitate to make love to another man’s wife during her honeymoon. What do you say?”

Myra pursed her red lips and wrinkled her brows in thought, and Tony took her indecision to be a good sign.

“Say ‘yes,’ darling,” he urged. “You know I’m most tremendously in love with you and frightfully keen, and you will have no further reason to feel afraid of Don Carlos when you are my wife.”

“I’m not afraid of Don Carlos,” snapped Myra. “Oh, Tony, don’t be so dense and exasperating! Almost I wish now I had never told you about the tiresome and conceited creature’s love-making... Besides,” she added, inconsequentially, “I don’t want to get married yet, and if I did marry you before we go to Scotland Don Carlos would pride himself it was to protect myself from him, and it would be worse and more dangerous if he made love to me as a married woman. Oh, Tony, my dear, I’m getting mixed, but maybe you understand what I mean. I’m not afraid of Don Carlos, but I don’t want to give him any chance of going about boasting that I am in love with him.”

“I don’t think he would do that, Myra,” said Tony. “He seems an awfully decent sort of chap. If you’d heard his explanation, you would understand that he was really only paying us both a compliment by pretending to make love to you. I do hope you’ll see him, my dear, and let him explain and apologise. I don’t understand why you’re so cross with me, darling.”

He looked so absurdly pathetic that Myra’s irritation gave way to amusement, and her lovely face dimpled into smiles.

“I’m not really cross with you, Tony, my dear, although I do think you have made rather a mess of things,” she exclaimed, and gave Tony an affectionate pat on both cheeks. “It will be interesting and amusing to listen to Don Carlos’s explanations and apologies if any... Oh, yes, Tony, I’ll see him, and I think I shall manage to take some of the conceit out of him.”

As it happened, Lady Fermanagh had an engagement that afternoon, and Myra was alone when Don Carlos de Ruiz was announced. Myra had been doing some hard thinking, and she was feeling sure of herself as she rose to greet her visitor, who bowed low before smiling into her eyes.

“I have called to offer my congratulations, dear lady,” he said, in his deep, caressing voice.

“Congratulations? On what, pray?” inquired Myra very coldly. “I understood from Mr. Standish that you were calling to offer apologies for having annoyed me.”

“I have come to proffer both apologies and congratulations,” said Don Carlos slowly, twin imps of mischief dancing in his laughing eyes. “I have come to tender my most humble apologies for having so far, apparently, failed to melt your icy heart and fire it with the love that burns within me; to congratulate you on being the first woman who has ever taken exception to my making love to her. And to congratulate you, also, on being such an excellent actress.”

“Actress? What do you mean?”

“Your pretence of annoyance, dear lady, is such a fine piece of acting that almost I am persuaded you are not in love with me and have steeled your heart against me.”

“Please go on being persuaded.” Myra’s tone was intended to be sardonic. “So far it seems to me you have called to pay yourself compliments instead of to offer apologies. Apparently you explained to Mr. Standish that your love-making was intended as a compliment. Let me tell you, Don Carlos, if that is so I want no more of your compliments.”

“If I believed that, sweet lady, life would lose its savour and become but a bleak existence,” responded Don Carlos. “I prefer to believe that you love, yet refrain, and that your complaint to your fiance is an indication that your resistance is weakening, that you fear unless you are able to avoid me you will inevitably surrender to the call of love.”

“Your overweening conceit would be laughable if it were not so irritating,” Myra retorted curtly. “I want to tell you bluntly that unless you give me your word of honour not to attempt to make love to me I shall refuse to go to Auchinleven if you are to be one of the party, and that will leave Mr. Standish no alternative but to cancel his invite to you and explain to his friends that his reason is my objection to you.”

The smile died out of Don Carlos’s eyes, and he regarded Myra gravely and silently for a few moments.

“I promise you I shall not make love to you while we are in Scotland,” he said at last. “It will be desperately hard to resist the temptation, but I promise to refrain. And I never go back on a promise.”

“Good! In that case we can let bygones be bygones and be friends,” exclaimed Myra, and impulsively held out her hand.

Don Carlos raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them, and the boyish smile came back to his face.

“Let me warn you, however, my dear Myra, that although I speak no word of love, my heart and my eyes will be making love to you all the time, and every fibre of my being will be loving you and longing for you,” he said. “I shall be planning new ways of overcoming your resistance and inducing you to confess that you love me. Always my heart will be calling and calling to you.”

“As long as you do not badger me with your attentions, as you have been doing, it will not concern me what is happening to your heart,” remarked Myra, forcing a laugh. “You can even pretend to be heartbroken, if you think the rôle will suit you.”

“No, the rôle of broken-hearted, rejected suitor would not please me,” laughed Don Carlos. “I shall be the strong, silent man, biding his time, confident of eventually gaining his heart’s desire. Meanwhile I am congratulating myself on having made it possible to fulfil my boast that I should be your fellow-guest in Scotland for the shooting.”

“You have my leave to congratulate yourself as much as you like, Don Carlos, and to hand yourself as many bouquets as you like,” said Myra smilingly, “but I shall hold you to your promise not to attempt to make love to me.”

“I promise you, Myra, I shall be as silent as a Trappist monk, so far as talking love to you is concerned,” Don Carlos assured her. “My promise, however, only holds good for the duration of our stay in the Highlands. After that ”

“Tony and I are going to be married in the Spring,” interrupted Myra.

“I think not,” said Don Carlos with great earnestness. “You will be mine, dear heart, before the Spring flowers have finished blooming.”

“Oh, please don’t start being absurd again, just after promising to be sensible!” protested Myra.

“You will be mine, dear heart, before the Spring flowers have finished blooming,” repeated Don Carlos. “Sweet lady, you may take that as another promise made in all seriousness. I love you, and I have sworn ”

“Let’s change the subject, Don Carlos,” interrupted Myra again. “Oblige me by making your promise not to make love to me date from this minute.”

“As you will, beloved,” said Don Carlos, with an exaggerated sigh; and Myra could not decide whether or not he was laughing.