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, señor," 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. "Señor 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?"