wn a narrow,
ill-lighted street.

"What a lovely night! It makes one feel strangely, doesn't it, to be
out after dark in a foreign city that no one you know has ever
visited, and that seemed in geography days as far off as the moon?" I
get no answer to my small observations, and we walk on. "The gallery
isn't as near as I thought."

"It ees not far, Blanca; you air fery lofely in dthe moonlight."

"I'm glad to know what is required to make me lovely."

"You air alvays 'wonderschoen' to me--but you look too clevair
zometimes in dthe day. In dthis moonlight you look so gentle--like a
leedle child. Blanca, zay again you loaf me."

He holds my hand close and bends down until I feel his hot breath on
my cheek.

"I can't say _again_ what I never said once."

I begin to walk faster.

"Ve air not _abord du San Miguel_; no von see, no von hear. I know in
my heart you loaf me; tell me so vonce! Blanca!" The music and
entreaty in the deep voice thrill me strangely. "Oh, Blanca darling,
keess me!" My puny resistance is nothing to those athlete's arms; he
holds me close one instant and I, breathless, struggle to free my
hands, and push his hot cheek away from mine.

"How dare you; you are no gentleman!"

"No, I am a loaver, Blanca, not von cold Nordthern zhentleman, who haf
so leedle heart it can be hush, and zo dthin, poor blood it nefer rush
fire at a voman's touch. Blanca, I haf been still for days, vaiting
for dthis hour. I loaf you, darling, till all my life is nodthing but
von longing--I loaf you till I haf no conscience, no _religion_ but my
loaf. No, you shall not spik now! Blanca, you must marry me, _here_ in
Guatemala. You and I go not back to _San Miguel_ unless you air my
vife."

"Baron!"

"Hush! Spik not so loud, and if you vill not make me mad call me not
Baron."

An awful sense of loneliness chokes me. The streets of that buried
Aztec city are not more silent than this one in Guatemala.

"Guillermo, listen! I have no friend here but you; you must take me
back to Mrs. Steele. Come!"

"How vell you know men! But not _me_, Blanca--not a Peruvian. I know
it ees better for you, as vell as for myself, dthat you marry me. You
haf nefer been so gentle and so gude as since I hold you near dthat
baranca. But you did not like it! You loaf me, but you air like a vild
deer; you air so easy startle, and so hard to hold. But I vill be zo
gude to Blanca, I vill make her glad I vas so strong not to let her
haf he