"No."

"At all events, you are an Andalusian? Your soft way of speaking makes
me think so."

"If you notice people's accent so closely, you must be able to guess
what I am."

"I think you are from the country of Jesus, two paces out of Paradise."

I had learned the metaphor, which stands for Andalusia, from my friend
Francisco Sevilla, a well-known _picador_.

"Pshaw! The people here say there is no place in Paradise for us!"

"Then perhaps you are of Moorish blood--or----" I stopped, not venturing
to add "a Jewess."

"Oh come! You must see I'm a gipsy! Wouldn't you like me to tell you _la
baji_?* Did you never hear tell of Carmencita? That's who I am!"

* Your fortune.

I was such a miscreant in those days--now fifteen years ago--that the
close proximity of a sorceress did not make me recoil in horror. "So be
it!" I thought. "Last week I ate my supper with a highway robber. To-day
I'll go and eat ices with a servant of the devil. A traveller should see
everything." I had yet another motive for prosecuting her acquaintance.
When I left college--I acknowledge it with shame--I had wasted a certain
amount of time in studying occult science, and had even attempted, more