y, Myra, dear, aren't you going to offer me a
cup of tea? I suppose I may smoke as Lady Fermanagh isn't here?"

Myra found herself at a loss to know how to deal with the situation.
To tell Tony what had happened would inevitably lead to a painful
scene, perhaps even to violence; to refrain from telling him would seem
like condoning Don Carlos's conduct. She was torn by conflicting
emotions and could not make up her mind how to act. Act, however, she
did, in a literal sense, for although her heart was still throbbing
wildly and her mind was in a whirl, she managed somehow to assume an
almost casual air.

"Why, of course you may smoke, Tony," she said, after ringing the bell
and ordering more tea. "I'll have a cigarette myself to soothe my
nerves."

"Never noticed any signs of nerves about you, old thing," laughed Tony,
as he proffered his case and struck a match to light the cigarette Myra
accepted. "Nerves! The risks you have been taking of late in the
hunting field have made my blood run cold. The way you took that hedge
last week during the run with the Quorn made my heart stand still.
Honestly, Myra, I shall be glad when I have you safely aboard the
_Killarney_, and we are on our way to Spain."

"I am not going to Spain," said Myra, very abruptly.

"Not going to Spain?" repeated Tony, in surprise.

"No, Tony, I am not going to Spain. Don Carlos has offended me beyond
pardon."

"I say, Myra, you're ragging, aren't you?" asked Tony. "I thought you
had made it up with Don Carlos. Don't tell me the villain has been
making love to you again!"

"Why, of course I have," exclaimed Don Carlos. "I am madly in love
with Myra, and it is because she is afraid of falling as desperately in
love with me as I am with her, and being forced, in consequence, to
jilt you, that she has again decided not to go to Spain. She is afraid
of me--and of love."

"What a pair of leg-pullers you are!" chuckled Tony, assuming the whole
thing was a jest. "Half the men one meets are in love with Myra, but I
refuse to believe she is afraid of any of them."

"Ah, but she is afraid of me, my dear Standish, and you should realise
I am your most dangerous rival," Don Carlos said gravely, and again
Tony chuckled amusedly. "Perhaps it is not only of me but of herself,
and for herself, that Myra is afraid," Carlos continued, with a
challenging glance at Myra, who felt she would like to box his ears and
also to shake Tony for being s