he was right, you are obviously the tall, dark man of
whom I am to beware, just as Tony Standish is the man I am destined to
marry."

"Pouf! I pay no heed to the foolish prattle of so-called gipsy
fortune-tellers," said Don Carlos, smiling again. "The seer who
foretold that I should meet and win you was King of the Spanish
Gypsies, and his every prophecy comes true."

"Well, to make his prophecy come true as far as you are concerned, Don
Carlos, you will have to fall in love with someone other than me,"
responded Myra. "Hadn't you better have some tea, senor?"

CHAPTER III

To Myra's relief, Lady Fermanagh returned just then, full of apologies
for having been detained so long at the telephone.

"I hope Myra has been keeping you entertained, senor," she inquired,
and Don Carlos nodded smilingly.

"More than entertained, Lady Fermanagh," he answered. "Miss Rostrevor
and I have been discussing predestination. I have been telling her it
was foretold by the King of the Gypsies that in this, my thirty-fifth
year, I should meet my ideal, the woman predestined to be my wife. I
have met her. The prophecy has come true."

"I'm afraid it is another case of mistaken identity, Aunt Clarissa,"
interposed Myra. "Senor de Ruiz has made the amazing and amusing
suggestion that I am the woman! Did you ever hear anything more
absurd?"

She thought to cover Don Carlos with confusion, but he did not turn a
hair.

"Alas, Lady Fermanagh, your charming niece refuses to take me
seriously!" he smilingly lamented. "It seems she was warned as a child
to beware of a tall, dark, handsome man, and to put no faith in his
honeyed words. I am desolated--but only temporarily!"

"From what I can make of it, you appear to have been engaged in a
'leg-pulling' contest," commented Lady Fermanagh, darting a quick
glance from one to the other, and deciding that Myra was probably
evolving some mischievous joke. "You don't mean to tell me seriously,
Don Carlos, that you have any faith in the predictions of a gipsy?"

"Dear lady, since the King of the Gypsies predicted I should get my
heart's desire, surely it would be almost heresy to doubt?" Don Carlos
replied, with a side-glance at Myra. "In my own country I have the
reputation always of gaining anything on which I set my heart, and here
I intend to live up to my reputation. Assuredly the Gypsy King's
prediction will come true, your ladyship."

He took his leave a few minutes