She piloted them through the rooms, reciting the information that lies in Baedeker, adroitly compelled by Catalina’s intelligent questions to address the lecture to her. By the time they reached the queen’s boudoir in the Torre del Peinador, Catalina noted that the guide chafed visibly at being compelled to ignore the man, and it was evident by her wandering glances and the inflections of her voice that she not only admired the Englishman’s good looks, but appreciated his social superiority over the gentlemen of the brush who so often were her portion at pensions. Here, however, it was obviously the woman who would be interested in the perforated stone slab in a corner of the floor, which may have been built to perfume a queen or merely to warm her, and as she and Catalina disputed amiably, Over leaned on the stone wall of the narrow balcony and looked at the splendid view of Albaicin and mountain.
Then Catalina whimsically determined to give the girl the opportunity she craved. Her interest in the conversation perceptibly waning, Miss Holmes was enabled to transfer her attentions to the man, and, with battery of eye and glance, convey to him her pleasure in dropping history for human nature. When his attention was absorbed Catalina descended softly into the long arcade which overhangs the Darro, and, after wandering about at its extremity for a few moments and getting her bearings, sat down on the window-seat that looks upon the Patio de la Reja, with its neglected fountain and cypresses. They must pass her on their way to the Sala de los Embajadores. She was not sorry to be alone, and felt happy and secure, experiencing a passing moment of contempt for men in general, so easy were they to manage—a mood which assails every charming woman at times, and even on the heels of doubt and despair. But Catalina’s spirit was too buoyant not to comprehend ideality in its flight, and she stared unseeingly at the dead walls and saw only what she had divined in Over.
She waited a long while. Coming out of her reverie with a start, she wondered how long it was and drew out her watch. It was half-past eleven, and, making a rapid calculation, she was driven to conclude that her cavalier had been absorbed by the enchantress for fully an hour.
She was too proud to go after them, but her fingers curved round the window-seat in the effort to restrain herself, and her spirits plunged into an abyss of dull despair, emerging only on jealous and torturing wings to drop again. She realized the mistake she had made in the exuberance of her happy self-confidence; for a girl like Miss Holmes can make heavy running in an hour. On the steamer and in the various pensions where the Moultons had lingered she had often seen what no doubt was this same type of girl retire into a corner with the man she had marked for her own and talk—or listen—hour after hour; and Catalina had speculated upon their subjects, wondering that one human being could interest another for so long a time without the exterior aids of travel. The man had always looked as engrossed as the girl, and Catalina was forced to conclude that the mysterious arts were effective, and wished it were not forbidden to listen behind a curtain, but only that curiosity might be satisfied—she scorned arts herself. Now she wondered distractedly what this ashen-haired houri was talking about to make Over forget his very manners; but none of the long, desultory conversations, followed by the longer silences peculiar to her experience with him, threw light on the weapons of this accomplished ruler of hearts; although the bare idea that they might be leaning over the parapet side by side in a familiar silence brought Catalina to her feet and turned her sharply towards the arcade. But at that moment she saw them coming.
Over was a little ahead of his companion, who was smiling with her lips, and he came forward with some anxiety in his eyes.
“I only just missed you,” he said. “I thought you were there in the room lost in one of your silent moods. When did you come down?”
“Only a little while ago,” said Catalina, sweetly, and she saw the eyes of the other girl flash with something like fear. She also noted that her cheeks were flushed.
“You have got a little sunburned,” she said, with concern for a fine complexion in her voice. “It is much cooler down here. Have we time to go into the Sala de los Embajadores?”
And Over was made subtly aware of the second-rate quality of Miss Holmes’s accent.
They entered the immense room, whose dome is like a mighty jewel hollowed and carved within, where Boabdil drew his last breath as king of Granada; and before Miss Holmes could open her lips, Catalina, with all the picturesqueness of vocabulary she could command at will, described several of the scenes of which this most historical room in the Alhambra was the theatre; not only throwing into low relief the academic meagreness of the other girl’s knowledge, but insinuating its supererogation. Meanwhile she missed nothing. She saw the girl’s color fade, her expression of almost supercilious self-confidence give place to anxiety, and as she turned away and stared out of one of the deep windows, it rushed over Catalina sickeningly that Over, in the span of an hour, had captivated her heart as well as her fancy. He must have made himself very fascinating! Catalina bungled her centuries; Miss Holmes in love would make a formidable rival.