Is it because I have something of a
Spanish look?"
I answered that the Iberians were the ancient Britons, a dark-eyed,
brown-skinned people who inhabited this country and all Southern Europe
before the invasion of the blue-eyed races; that doubtless there had
been an Iberian mixture in her ancestors, perhaps many centuries ago,
and that these peculiar characters had come out strongly in her; she
had the peculiar kind of blood in her veins and the peculiar sort of
soul which goes with the blood.
"But what a mystery it is!" she exclaimed. "I am the only small one in
a family of tall sisters. My parents were both tall and light, and the
others took after them. I was small and dark, and they were tall
blondes with blue eyes and pale gold hair. And in disposition I was
unlike them as in physique. How do you account for it?"
It was a long question, I said, and I had told her all I could about
it. I couldn't go further into it; I was too ignorant. I had just
touched on the subject in one of my books. It was in other books, with
reference to a supposed antagonism which still survives in blue-eyed
and dark-eyed people.
She asked me to give her the titles of the books I spoke of.
