Yet about Donna Inez there was the same indefinite barbaric look as characterized her father. Her face was lovely, dark and proud in expression, but there was an aloofness about it which puzzled the English girl. Donna Inez might have belonged to a race populating another planet of the solar system. She had large black, melting eyes, a straight Greek nose and perfect mouth, a well-rounded chin and magnificent hair, dark and glossy as the wing of the raven, which was arranged in the latest Parisian style of coiffure. Also, her gown—as the two women guessed in an instant—was from Paris. She was perfectly gloved and booted, and even if she betrayed somehow a barbaric taste for color in the dull ruddy hue of her dress, which was subdued with black braid, yet she looked quite a well-bred woman. All the same, her whole appearance gave an observant onlooker the idea that she would be more at home in a scanty robe and glittering with rudely wrought ornaments of gold. Perhaps Peru, where she came from, suggested the comparison, but Lucy's thoughts flew back to an account of the Virgins of the Sun, which the Professor had once described. It occurred to her, perhaps wrongly, that in Donna Inez she beheld one who in former days would have been the bride of some gorgeous Inca.
“I fear you will find England dull after the sunshine of Lima,” said Lucy, having ended a swift examination.
Donna Inez shivered a trifle and glanced around at the gray misty air through which the pale sunshine struggled with difficulty.
“I certainly prefer the tropics to this,” she said in musical English, “but my father has come down here on business, and until it is concluded we shall remain in this place.”
“Then we must make things as bright as possible for you,” said Mrs. Jasher cheerfully, and desperately anxious to learn more of the new-comers. “You must come to see me, Donna Inez—yonder is my cottage.”
“Thank you, madame: you are very good.”