out-of-doors drawing-room.

Though she spoke English well--almost as well as if she had not been born
in Spain and made her greatest successes in the City of Mexico--Carmen
thought in Spanish, for her heart was Spanish, and her beauty too.

She was always handsome, but she was beautiful as she came out into the
sunset gold which seemed meant for her, as stage lights are turned on for
the heroine of a play; and there was something about Carmen which
suggested strong drama. Even the setting in which she framed herself was
like an ideal scene for a first act.

The house was not very old, and not really Spanish, but it had been
designed by an architect who knew Carmen, with the purpose of giving a
Spanish effect. He had known exactly the sort of background to suit her, a
background as expensive as picturesque; a millionaire husband had paid for
it. There were many verandas and pergolas, but this immense out-of-doors
room had wide archways instead of pillars, curtained with white and purple
passion flowers; and the creamy stucco of the house-wall, and the ruddy
Spanish tiles, which already looked mellow with age, were half hidden with
climbing roses and grapevines.

Three shallow steps of pansy-coloured bricks went all the length of the
gallery, descending to a terrace floored with the same brick, which held
dim tints of purple, old rose, gray and yellow, almost like a faded
Persian rug.

When Carmen had looked past the fountain across the lawn, down the path
cut between pink oleanders, where the man she expected ought to appear,
she trailed her white dress over terrace and grass to peer under the green