“They are very beautiful, are they not?” Leam asked suddenly.

“What? who?” was Edgar’s answer.

“The Andalusian women, and the men,” returned Leam.

“The men are fine-looking fellows enough,” answered Edgar carelessly—­“a little too brutal for my taste, but well-grown men for all that.  But I have seen prettier women out of Spain than in it.”

“Mamma used to say they were so beautiful—­the most beautiful of all the women in the world; and the best.”  Leam said this with a disappointed air and her old injured accent.

Edgar laughed softly.  “The prettiest Andalusian woman I have ever seen has an English father,” he answered, with a sudden flush on his handsome face as he bent it a little nearer to hers.

“How odd!” said Leam.  “An English father?  That is like me.”

Edgar looked at her, to read how much of this was real ingenuousness, how much affected simplicity.  He saw only a candid inquiring face with a faint shade of surprise in its quiet earnestness, unquestionably not affected.

“Just so,” he answered.  “Exactly like you.”

His voice and manner made Leam blush uncomfortably.  She was conscious of something disturbing, without knowing what it was.  She first looked up into his face with the same expression of inquiry as before, then down to the earth perplexedly, when suddenly the truth came upon her; he meant herself—­she was the prettiest Andalusian he had ever seen.

She was intensely humiliated at her discovery.  Not one of those girls who study every feature, every gesture, every point, till there is not a square inch of their personality of which they are not painfully conscious, Leam had never taken herself into artistic consideration at all.  She had been proud of her Spanish blood, of her mantilla, her high comb and her fan; but of herself as a woman among women she knew nothing, nor whether she was plain or pretty.  Indeed, had she had to say offhand which, she would have answered plain.  The revelation which comes sooner or later to all women of the charms they possess had not yet come to her; and Edgar’s words, making the first puncture in her ignorance, pained her more by the shock which they gave her self-consciousness than they pleased her by their flattery.

She said no more, but walked by his side with her head held very high and slightly turned away.  She was sorry that he had offended her.  They had been getting on together so well until he had said this foolish thing, and now they were like friends who had quarreled.  She was quite sorry that he had been so foolish as to offend her, but she must not forgive him—­at least not just yet.  It was very wrong of him to tell her that she was prettier than the true children of the soil; and she resented the slight to Spain and to her mother, as well as the wrong done to herself, by his saying that which was not true.  So she walked with her little head held high, and Edgar could get nothing more out of her.  When Leam was offended coaxings to make her forget were of no avail.  She had to wear through an impression by herself, and it was useless to try for a premature pardon.