a bitter
taste in your mouth."

"You seem content with _my_ escape. You don't feel any concern that
the Baron may lack the valuable qualities you think are my safeguard?
Suppose, just for argument's sake, he should say I had----?"

"Broken his heart? Ah, my dear, he has probably said that to a dozen.
It's a tough article, the masculine heart, and the kind of women who
strain it most are----"

"Bewildering beauties, such as _you_ were at twenty! And I may rest in
my defects with an easy conscience. Thank you!"

"That was not what I was going to say."

In my heart I knew it was what she was thinking.

CHAPTER VII

[Illustration: Chapter Seven]

THE INCA EYE

Mr. and Mrs. Dalton give us a beautiful Spanish-French dinner in a
private room of the Gran Hotel where they live. Mrs. Dalton is
palpably delighted with the Baron de Bach. He is unusually reserved,
but gravity sits well on him, and, as I see him crossing swords with
this clever woman of the world, I find my admiration growing. He seems
not to see me all through dinner, and, like the stupid young person I
am, I fall to regretting that by the side of our brilliant, travelled
hostess I must seem provincial and dull. I am not sorry when, shortly
after dinner, Mrs. Steele, regretting we have to leave so early the
following day, remembers a friend she must see that night, and we take
our leave.

"Senorita look fery tire--she better stay in dthe hotel. I vill escort
you, Madame, vidth plaisir."

We stop a moment on the stairs.

"Oh, no! I especially want Blanche to see the interior of a handsome
native house. You're not too tired, are you, dear?"

"No," I say, "I'll go."

"She vould zay dthat if she die. You stay here, Senorita; Madame
Steele be not long."

The idea flits across my mind he has some reason of his own for not
wanting me to go; but I've no notion of being left alone.

"No, I'll go with you, Mrs. Steele."

"After I escort Madame, I go to dthe photographic gallery; I buy you
all dthose pictures ve haf not time to get dthis afternoon. I send
dthem to your room; you vill not be lonely."

"Oh, why can't we all go to the gallery? I do so want a collection of
views. I want nothing else so much!" I plead.

It ends by our driving to Casa 47, in a wide street opposite the
public gardens. The Baron dismisses the coachman, telling him to come
back in a couple of hours, and I drop the iron knocker on the massive
door. A native servant dr