"Quien sabe, Senorita Dolores?" he rallied her. "Tell me how to prove it."
She flashed him a glance of naive coquetry. "You ask how? If I were my great grandmother, you might try to kiss me, and chance a stiletto thrust in return."
"Your great grandmother was an Italian?"
The girl's red lips curled disdainfully. "No, she was Spanish. Though she lived in Mexico, her family were Castilian and related to the royal Valois family of France. So you see how far back it goes. We have the journal of her husband. She married Dr. Robinson, who accompanied Lieutenant Pike on his famous expedition."
"Pike? Leftenant Pike?"
"No, he wasn't 'left.' He came back and became the General Pike who died at the moment of his glorious victory over the English, in the War of 1812."
"Ah, come to think—Pike of Pike's Peak. Never heard of the battle you mention; but as an explorer—So one of his companions married your ancestress?"
"Yes. He must have been another such man as Mr. Blake."
"The kind to risk stiletto thrusts for kisses?"
"Yes. I know I must be exactly like her—that haughty Senorita
Alisanda."