“Nina,” he said, irritably reseating himself, “I belong to my father’s nation.”
She stuffed the letter in her pocket, and jumped up. “Now how can you? If one of your parents was English and the other was Spanish, you must be half and half.”
“Very well, I am Spanish and you are English.”
“I am not English,” she said, resolutely. “I hate English people.”
“Come, come, Nina.”
“Well, I don’t hate them as much as I did, but I am American. I was brought up in America; and that is my home.”
“With your veins full of English blood.”
“The country where I played as a child, the country where my friends are, the country where I went to school, the country where everything is familiar,—that is my country. I feel as if I were at a party all the time I am in England. It is not home.”
“All right,” he said, agreeably and absently.
“’Steban,” said the girl, solemnly, “let us not occupy ourselves with the present. Let us talk about the past. I can’t get out of my head that short bit of history of my mother’s life and yours. I wrote it down just the way you told it to me,” and she drew a crumpled paper from her breast. “Wouldn’t you like to hear it?”