t you are a banished prince yourself," said Pilar, when I spoke
something of what was in my mind. "And you've come out of your enchanted
cave at the magic word. That magic word is--Love."

XXI

THE DUCHESS'S HAND

High on the hill Colonel O'Donnel pointed out the Alcazar of many
vicissitudes, long since turned into a military academy, which has made
Toledo to Spain what Woolwich is to England. "There your father and I went
to school," said he. "I come every year or two, and wander about with my
thoughts."

With this, he began bowing right and left to young officers who sauntered
inside the gateway. Nearly everyone knew and seemed delighted to see him;
indeed, who could see the excellent Cherub, and not be glad?

He himself was happy. "There go your father and I!" he exclaimed, picking
out the two best-looking infants in a procession of incredibly small boys
proudly wearing a smart uniform. "Oh, where are the girls who used to
smile at us?"

So we drove into the Moorish-looking stronghold, through a labyrinth of
steeply ascending tunnels which were streets. They were so narrow that I
would not have believed the car could scrape along without smashing the
mud-guards, had not the Cherub valiantly urged us on, with assurances that
it could be done. And always we did slide through, the sides of the Gloria
so close to open doors and windows that we could have reached into dark
rooms, and helped ourselves to loaves of bread, brass cooking vessels,
coarse green pottery, jars of flowers, or astonished babies.

There was no space for dwellers in these shadowed lanes to rush from their
houses before our car, when warned by the "choof, choof" of the motor as
we rattled over the "agony stones," that something extraordinary was
coming; but mothers shrieked for their offspring, while young girls hailed
their friends to the free show; and men, women, and children jostled each
other good-naturedly in every window and door as we approached, pouring
out in our wake, though seemingly half afraid even then that the dragon
might take to charging back upon them.

Beautiful faces peered from behind rusty bars, with eyes to tempt any man
to "eat iron," as the saying is. Dark men with sun-warmed eyes, and black
heads wrapped in handkerchiefs of scarlet silk, stared curiously at
Pilar's veil; and when we emerged from the stone-and-plaster labyrinth,
into a wider space where the hotel stands l