Rude, did I say? Perhaps
crude would be a better word. How rude and crude to dash back to Spain
to attend to some matter of business when you had been trying to
pretend to be hopelessly in love."

"Not 'hopelessly,' Myra," Don Carlos responded quietly, raising her
fingers to his lips. "Never have I been 'hopelessly' in love, for
always I have been sure at heart that I should win.... So you have
missed me, darling, and now your heart is throbbing because I have come
back to you? I am glad. I went away without a word in the hope that
by so doing I should punish you for your cruelty in tempting and
tantalising me as you did at Auchinleven."

"Tempting and tantalising you!" exclaimed Myra, and trilled out a
laugh. "And you think, you conceited man, that you were punishing me
by going to Spain for a fortnight or so without even having the
politeness to say au revoir! How very amusing! And how very crude and
rude! Didn't you understand I was paying you back in your own coin at
Auchinleven by pretending to be in love? So you went away with the
idea of punishing me!"

"I found it necessary to return to my home in order to take
precautionary measures against the bandit, El Diablo Cojuelo, who is
evidently planning fresh mischief," Don Carlos explained. "Now I have
come back to you to redeem my promise."

"Your promise?" queried Myra, forcing herself to meet his ardent
glance. "I don't understand. What promise?"

"My promise to kiss you in the way you wanted to be kissed by the man
who loves you," said Don Carlos quickly; and before Myra realised what
was happening she was crushed close to his breast and he was kissing
her as she had never been kissed before, hungrily, fiercely,
passionately, ardently.

For a few minutes she found herself, in some mysterious way, robbed of
all powers of resistance. Don Carlos's lips were crushed on her own,
and his burning kisses seemed to be drugging her brain and drawing the
very heart out of her. Then suddenly she struggled and broke from him,
her lovely face aflame, her bosom heaving tempestuously, her breath
coming and going in sobbing gasps.

"How dare you! Oh, how dare you!" she panted. "You brute! You brute!
I could kill you!"

She dropped limply into a chair and covered her burning face with her
hands. She was trembling, her heart was throbbing as if it would
burst, and her brain was in a turmoil. Don Carlos stood silent for a
few moments, his dark eyes s