on Carlos, with a shrug and a
sigh. "You are the most tantalising, puzzling and exasperating girl I
have ever met, as well as the loveliest and the most adorable."

"Really!" laughed Myra. "I wonder you consort with such an annoying
person!"

"Consort? Consort? I like that word, Myra," he responded. "I intend
to be your consort for the rest of my life, and you shall be my queen
and the empress of my heart."

"What a horrible threat!" exclaimed Myra. "And I am afraid,
incidentally, it is camouflaged love-making. You must keep to the
spirit as well as the letter of your promise, Don Carlos, if you wish
to continue on our present footing."

"I am but human, sweet lady, and you are torturing me," said Don
Carlos. "I am like unto a man dying of thirst, and you hold a cup of
water to my lips, only to snatch it away when I try to drink. But I
promise you I shall yet drink my fill from your fountain of love."

"Another dreadful threat--and aren't your metaphors getting mixed
again?"

"Myra, darling, I love--

"Remember your promise!" interrupted Myra. "If, as you say, I torture
you so horribly, perhaps you would prefer me to avoid you?"

"No, no, a thousand times, no!" Don Carlos cried. "I was desolated
when you refused to dance with me last night, and you put me to the
torture later in the conservatory. I wanted to murder the other man,
the one in particular on whom you bestowed your favours."

"Dear me! What a bloodthirsty creature! Incidentally, are you not
still attempting to make love indirectly? I suppose making love has
become a sort of second nature, and you do not know you are breaking
your promise?"

"I stand rebuked, sweet lady, and crave your pardon," said Don Carlos.
"Never yet have I consciously broken a promise. And let me remind you
that I have made you several promises."

"Several?" repeated Myra, raising her eyebrows inquiringly.

"Yes, you may remember that the first time we danced together I
promised to awaken your heart and fire it with the passion which now
consumes me," replied Don Carlos quietly. "I have promised several
times since to make you my own, to make you surrender to the call of
love and confess yourself conquered."

"Those, I presume, were promises made to yourself," Myra retorted
lightly. "We all promise ourselves things, and hope for things, we
know at heart we shall never get."

"I have told you it was prophesied that I should get my heart's desire,
and