"Señora," said Lord Deseret in Spanish, with the suspicion of a smile in the corners of his eyes, "may I be allowed the pleasure of introducing to you some young friends of mine?" And she struck at him playfully with the plume of feathers, disclosing for a moment a laughing mouth and a set of fine white teeth. And Jim thought she looked hardly as young as her eyes and her feet would have led one to suppose.
"Do you understand Spanish?" she asked of Jim, in English.
"No, I'm sorry to say----"
"Then you see, milord, it is not comme il faut to speak it where it is not understood." And she laughed again.
"I stand corrected, madame. We will not speak our native tongue. This is my young friend, James Carron."
And Jim, gazing with all his heart at the wonderful dancer, got a vivid impression of a rich dark Southern face, and a pair of great liquid black eyes glowing upon him through the tantalising undulations of the great dusky fan, which wafted to and fro with the methodic regularity of a metronome.
"And this is Lord Charles Denham. Both gallant Hussars, and both aching to show the colour of their blood against your friends of St. Petersburg."
"Ah, the horror!" she said gently. "But you do not look bloodthirsty, Mr. Carron." And the great black eyes seemed to look Jim through and through.
"I don't think I am really, you know. But if there is to be fighting one looks for chances, of course."
"And the chance always of death," she said gravely.