"Quite an effective piece of play-acting!" she remarked, forcing a laugh. "You really should be on the stage, Don Carlos, or acting for the movies. I feel sure you would be a success as a film actor, and all the flappers would lose their hearts to you. Will you have some tea?"
"Myra, I am not acting," Don Carlos protested, at last showing signs of chagrin. "I am in deadly earnest. I love you and want you, and the Devil himself will not prevent me from making you my own."
"His Satanic Majesty need not concern himself with the affair at all, at all," retorted Myra, regarding him coldly. "Let me save him the trouble by assuring you that your eloquent and melodramatic protestations of love leave me cold, and your boast that no woman has ever been able to resist you inspired me only with contempt for your conceit. Let me remind you again, also, that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Antony Standish, and assure you I have not the slightest intention of transferring my affections from an English gentleman to a Spaniard who evidently prides himself on being a sort of modern Don Juan."
Don Carlos's face went white beneath the tan as he listened to the scathing words, and a gleam of anger flashed into his dark eyes.
"You do me an injustice, and I think you are doing your own heart an injustice, Myra," he said, in a curiously quiet voice, after a momentary pause. "If——"
"I object to your calling me by my Christian name," Myra interposed abruptly, intent on snubbing him. "May I remind you we met for the first time yesterday. I can hardly imagine that in your own country you would dare to call a girl 'Myra' a few hours after meeting her for the first time."
"My dear Miss Rostrevor, I can lay my hand on my heart and assure you on my word of honour that never in Spain have I ever called a girl 'Myra,' either within a few hours or a few years of our first meeting," said Don Carlos, his eyes beginning to twinkle again. "That may be explained by the fact that I have never heard the name before. But I think it is a charming name, which somehow fits you. Incidentally, señorita, may I venture to point out that you have been addressing me as 'Don Carlos,' instead of as 'Señor de Ruiz'? You have been calling me by my Christian name."
"That was only because I thought 'Don' was a sort of Spanish equivalent of 'Sir' in English," Myra responded, somewhat taken aback. "Here I should address a Knight or a Baronet as 'Sir Charles' without the slightest idea of being familiar, but I should not expect him to respond by addressing me as 'Myra.' Do I make myself plain?"
"Dear lady, you could never make yourself plain, you who are so beautiful, but you are explicit," answered Don Carlos with a radiant smile that made him look quite boyish. "I stand rebuked, Myra, but I am impenitent. Surely one is not committing a crime by calling the girl one loves by her Christian name? I would prefer to call you cara mia or querida, which are the Spanish equivalents for my beloved and sweetheart, but, of course, as you seem to think I——"
"Señor de Ruiz, I have had enough of this nonsense!" Myra interrupted, impatiently. "Your attempts at love-making are utterly distasteful, and if you imagine you are going to add me to your list of conquests you are a case for a mental specialist."