"We are a mixed people--" I began.

"Mongrel!" she thrust at me, with a flash of hauteur.

"Not so ill a name for a race," I replied. "History tells of a people called Iberians. The Ph[oe]nicians and Carthagenians landed on their sh.o.r.es. Then came the Romans; later, the barbaric hordes from the North,--Goths, Vandals, Suevi; later still, the Moors."

The last was too much for her restraint. "Moors!--Moors! Mohammedan slaves!" she exclaimed. "We drove them out--man, woman, and child--before your land was so much as discovered."

"Yet not before they had done what little could be done toward civilizing barbaric Europe, and not before their blood had mingled--"

"_Santisima Virgen!_" she cried, in a pa.s.sion which was all the more striking for the restraint that held it in leash--"I, a daughter of such blood!--you say it?"

"I do not say it, senorita," I replied, with such steadiness as I could command under the flashing anger of her glance.

"Then what?" she demanded.

"I spoke of your race in general, senorita. There are self-evident facts. Even were the fact which you so abhor true as to yourself, would your eyes be any the less wondrously glorious? Your dusky hair--"

She burst into a rippling laugh, more musical than the notes of any instrument. "_Santa Maria!_" she murmured. "You miss few opportunities--for an Anglo-American!"

"A man asks only for reasonable opportunities, senorita,--a fair field and no favors."

"The last is easy to grant."

"You mean--?"

"No favors."

She had me hard. I rallied as best I could. "But a fair field--?"

"Can there be such?" she countered. "You are Anglo-American; I am Spanish."

"Vallois has a French sound."

Her chin rose a trifle higher. "It is a name that crowns the most glorious pages in the history of France."

I thought of St. Bartholomew, and smiled grimly. "I, too, can trace back to one ancestor of French blood. He died by command of Charles de Valois. He was a shoemaker and a Huguenot."

She looked at me with a level gaze. "It is evident you are one who does not fear to face the truth. You have yourself named the barrier and the gulf between us."

"Barriers have been leaped; gulfs spanned."

"None such as these!"

"Senorita, we each had four grandparents, they each had four. That is sixteen in the fourth generation back. How many in ten generations? Who can say he is of this blood or that?"

"I do not pretend to the skill to refute specious logic, and--here is the gate. My thanks to you."

"Senorita!" I protested.

"_Adios_, senor! Open your eyes to the barrier and the gulf."

"I see them, and they shall not stop me from crossing!" Again I encountered the inscrutable glance that opened to me the darkness in the fathomless depths of her eyes. "I swear it!" I vowed.

Still gazing full at me, she replied: "It may be that in the Spring we shall pa.s.s through New Orleans."

I would have protested--asked for a word more to add to this meagre information. But she turned in at the gate, and the Irishwoman was at my elbow.

"Till then, if not before, _au revoir_, senorita!" I called in parting.

She did not glance about or speak.

CHAPTER VI

THE WEB OF THE PLOTTER

Three days of waiting was the utmost I could force myself to endure. On the afternoon of the fourth I called at the house on the side street.

The door was opened by the Irishwoman, who met me with a broad grin.

"Oi looked for ye sooner, sor!" was her greeting.

"Senorita Vallois--?"

"Flown, sor,--more's th' pity! Ye're a loikely lad, sor, if ye'll oxcuse th' liberty."

"Gone?" I muttered. "Her uncle--?"

"Came an' packed her off, bag an' baggage, two days gone."

"Two days!--Where?"

"'Tis yersilf, sor, is to foind out th' same," she chuckled.

I held out a piece of silver. "Will that jog your memory, mistress?"

"Divil take ye!" she cried, and she struck the quarter dollar from my hand. "Am Oi a black traitor to sell a fellay Christian to a heretic?"

After that there was nothing to do but turn on my heel and leave the virago. By one false move I had lost her friendship beyond recall.

For weeks I sought to trace the senorita and her uncle. All I could discover was that the don had come from Philadelphia in his private coach, called at the British Legation, and carried away his niece by a route unknown.

Left with no more than that doubtful mention of New Orleans, I plunged back into the social swim of the Federal City; not to forget her,--that I could not have done had I wished,--but to wear away the months of waiting and to perfect myself in the social graces so far as lay within my capacity.

At the same time I did not forget to press my application with Secretary Dearborn and other members of the Government, who, I found, were all too ready to forget me. It was a hopeless quest, and I was well a.s.sured of the fact before midwinter. Yet it served its part as a time-killer; and the season being too far advanced for the descent of the Ohio by boat, it was far more agreeable as well as advantageous for me to while away my enforced holiday in Washington than needlessly to punish myself by the long and wearisome horseback journey to the Mississippi.

So I lingered on, dancing attendance on officials who frowned, and dancing the minuet with ladies who smiled. Each served its purpose in carrying me over what would otherwise have been a most tedious winter.