his time her belief in banditti and
wild beasts.

If his eyes oppressed her, hers half embarrassed him. There was such
a strange mixture of intensity and innocence in them, he scarcely knew
how to meet them.

"It is absurd to pretend that we do not know each other," then said
Edgar after a short pause, smiling; and his smile was very sweet and
pleasant. "You are Miss Dundas--I am Edgar Harrowby."

"Yes, I know," Leam answered.

"How is that?" he asked, "_I_ knew _you_ from your photograph--once
seen not to be forgotten again," gallantly--"but how should you know
me?"

Leam raised her eyes from the ground where she had cast them. Those
slow full looks, intense, tragic, fixed, had a startling effect of
which she was wholly unconscious. Edgar felt his own grow dark and
tender as he met hers. If the soul and mind within only answered to
the mask without, what queen or goddess could surpass this half-breed
Spanish girl, this country-born, unnoted, but glorious Leam Dundas? he
thought.

"And I knew you from yours," she answered.

"An honor beyond my deserts," said Edgar.

Not that he thought the notice of a girl, even with such a face
as this, beyond his deserts. Indeed, if a queen or a goddess had
condescended to him, it would not have been a grace beyond his merits;
but it sounded pretty to say so, and served to make talk as well as
anything else. And to make talk was the main business on hand at this
present moment.

"Why an honor?" asked Leam, ignorant of the elements of flirting.

Edgar smiled again, and this time his smile without words troubled
her. It seemed the assertion of superior intelligence, contemptuous,
if half pitiful of her ignorance. Once so serenely convinced of her
superiority, Leam was now as suspicious of her shortcomings, and was
soon abashed.

Edgar did not see that he had troubled her. Masterful and masculine
to an eminent degree, the timid doubts and fears of a young girl were
things he could not recognize. He had no point in his own nature with
which they came in contact, so that he should sympathize with them.
He knew the whole fence and foil of coquetry, the signs of silent
flattery, the sweet language of womanly self-conscious love, whether
wooing or being won; but the fluttering misgivings of youth and
absolute inexperience were dark to him. All of which he felt conscious
was that here was something deliciously fresh and original, and that
Leam was more beautiful to look at than