"I don't see how anyone could help being in love with you, darling," responded Tony gallantly. "My idea is that poor old Carlos is hard hit, and has probably gone to Paris to pull himself together, so to speak, and to avoid meeting you for a bit."
"Paris is so consoling!" commented Myra satirically. "Just the sort of quiet, soothing place where a heart-broken lover can find solace! I shall waste no sympathy on Don Carlos."
She was piqued and puzzled, and a little exasperated by the thought that Don Carlos was playing a joke on her.
"He probably thinks I am deeply in love with him, and flatters himself I shall be hurt and grieved by his sudden departure," reflected Myra. "Perhaps he thinks he is paying me back in my own coin, and he will find me ready to fall into his arms, so to speak, on his return. If so, I can promise him a disappointment."
She tried to put Don Carlos out of her mind, but she found herself thinking of him continually. Often in her dreams she was again enfolded in his arms with his lips crushed on her own, and she would wake with her heart throbbing wildly.
Tony never managed to set her heart throbbing in the same way. Myra wished he could and would. Perhaps it was her dreams of Don Carlos that caused her to be particularly nice to Tony during the next week or two, and to try to persuade herself that she was really in love with him.
No word came from Don Carlos, but he duly presented himself aboard the Killarney, Tony Standish's yacht, on the appointed day. And he looked as little like a heart-broken, forlorn lover as anyone could imagine. Indeed, he seemed to be in exceptionally high spirits, talked gaily of the enjoyable time he had had in Paris, explaining that he had combined business with pleasure.
He made no attempt to speak to Myra alone on the first night aboard, and joined a party of men playing poker in the smoking-room, in preference to dancing.
"He is really the most baffling and exasperating creature," Myra told herself. "I expect he thinks he is vexing me by being so casual, the conceited fellow. I am annoyed with myself for feeling annoyed."
She encountered Don Carlos next morning, when she went up on deck from her state room to take a stroll before breakfast, and he greeted her smilingly.