“You see,” says the young lady, archly, “I’ve been inquiring about you. Oh, don’t be afraid. No one [[97]]knows that you are here—absent from duty. They wouldn’t have made you Major, perhaps, if they had. But it has been whispered to me that you are even more than Major Guido Amati. You are Major Guido Amati de Medina, son of Hernandez de Medina, once Viceroy of Hispaniola, and have sworn never to assume your exalted family name until you are a general, which you soon must be.”
Then she cries out suddenly, clapping her hands, “Why, since you’re a Medina, you must be a cousin to the Duke of Medina Cœli.”
“Only—only third cousin,” stammers Guy, who thinks his ears are playing him false, though he knows his eyes are doing very good work, indeed.
“Well, anyway, you have the blood of the grandees of Spain, and as such your family is equal to mine,” murmurs the girl, a curious emphasis on the last remark. “As such, of course, you may sit by my side,” and the young lady sinking upon a Turkish sofa, a dream of vivacious grace, motions Guy to the familiarity of equal social station.
As she looks on the Englishman a great wave of color flies over Hermoine de Alva’s face, and in response Chester’s heart gives a big jump or two as he sees what must have been the drift of the girl’s mind.
“I am glad that you know so much about me,” he says, laughingly, then goes on grimly: “Glad that what you have learned has not displeased you.”
“Oh, I don’t know altogether that,” remarks the young lady; then she says, archness in her tone, but a quiver on her lip: “It was also whispered that Captain Guido Amati was a very wild young man. I hope that Major Guido Amati will be more circumspect. But still, they said you were the bravest officer in the army.” And the girl looks at him joyously, radiantly, proudly.
She has apparently been conjuring up some dream, some vision of her imagination, the center of which has always been Guido Amati; it brings a light into her eyes that adds even to her beauty, for at times were it not for womanly graces, vivacity and emotion, her brilliant intellect would, perchance, give too great coldness to Hermoine de Alva’s exquisite face. [[98]]
But, fired by the latent romance of her nature, her delicate face is as inspired—it would put glow into a saint: but with a sailor—.
And what she says gives golden opportunity. She has held up the ruby ring and whispered, “You returned this to me?”