Doña Sol examined this place, which was the most important centre of exportation of the taurine industry, with great interest. There were large enclosures alongside the railway siding, and dozens of huge boxes on wheels with movable doors. The bulls who were to be entrained, arrived, galloping along a dusty road edged with barbed wire. Many came from distant provinces, but on getting close to Empalme they were sent on with a rush, in order to get them into the enclosures with greater ease.

In front galloped the overseers and shepherds with their lances on their shoulders, and behind them the prudent "cabestros" covering the men with their huge horns. After these came the fighting bulls, well rounded up by tame bulls who prevented them straying from the road, and followed by strong cowherds ready to sling a stone at any wandering pair of horns.

Arrived at the enclosures the foremost riders drew to either side, leaving the gateway open, and the whole herd, an avalanche of dust, pawings, snortings and bells, rushed in like an overwhelming torrent and the gate was immediately closed after the last animal.

They tore through the first enclosure without noticing that they were trapped, the "cabestros," taught by experience and obedient to the shepherds, stood aside to let them pass into the second, where the herd only stopped on finding a blank wall before them.

Now the boxing began. One by one they were driven, by shouts, waving cloths, and blows from garrochas, into a narrow lane, at the end of which stood the travelling box, with both its side doors lowered. It looked like a small tunnel, through which the brutes could see a field beyond, with animals quietly grazing. The suspicious bulls guessed some danger in this small tunnel, and had to be driven on by clappings and whistlings and pricks. Finally they would make a dash for the quiet pasture beyond, making the sloping platform leading to the box shake as they rushed up it, but as soon as they had mounted this, the door in front of them was suddenly closed, and then equally quickly the one behind, and the bull was caught in a cage where he could only just stand up or lie down comfortably. The box was then wheeled into the railway, and another one took its place, till all the herd were successfully entrained.

When the first intoxication of Gallardo's good fortune had passed off, he looked at Doña Sol with the utmost astonishment, wondering in the hours of their greatest intimacy if all great ladies were like this one. The caprices and fickleness of her character bewildered him. He had never dared to address her as "tu," indeed she had never invited him to such a familiarity, and on the one occasion when with slow and hesitating tongue he had attempted it, he had seen in her golden eyes such a gleam of anger and surprise, that he had drawn back ashamed, and had returned to the former mode of speech.

She, on the other hand, spoke to him as "tu," but only in the hours of privacy. If she had to write to him asking him not to come, or saying she was going out with her relations, she always used the ceremonious "uste" and there were no expressions of affection, only the cold courtesies that might be written to a friend of an inferior class.

"Oh! that gachi," murmured Gallardo, disheartened; "it seems as if she had always lived with rascals who showed her letters to every one. One would think she cannot believe me to be a gentleman because I am a matador."

Some of her eccentricities left the torero frowning and sad. Sometimes on going to the house one of the magnificent servants would coldly bar his way. "The Señora was not at home," or "The Señora had gone out," and he knew that it was a lie, feeling the presence of Doña Sol a short distance from him, the other side of the curtained doors.

"The fuel is spent!" said the espada to himself, "I will not return. That gachi shall not laugh at me."

But when he did return, she received him with open arms, clasping him close in her firm white hands, with her eyes wide open and vague, and a strange light in them which seemed to speak of mental derangement.

"Why do you perfume yourself?" she said, as if she perceived the most unpleasant smells. "It is unworthy of you. I should like you to smell of bulls, of horses. Those are fine scents! Don't you love them? Say yes, Juanin, my animal."

One night in the soft twilight of Doña Sol's bedroom, Gallardo felt something very like fear, hearing her speak, and watching her eyes.

"I should like to run on all fours. I should like to be a bull, and that you should stand before me rapier in hand. Fine gorings I would give you! Here ... and here!"

And with her clenched fist, to which her excitement gave fresh strength, she planted several blows on the matador's chest only covered by his thin silk vest. Gallardo drew back, not wishing to admit that a woman could possibly hurt him.

"No, not a bull. I should like to be a dog ... a shepherd's dog ... one of those with long fangs, to come out and bark at you. Do you see that fine fellow who kills bulls, and who the public say is so brave? Well, I shall bite him. I shall bite him like this! Aaaam!"

And with hysterical delight she fixed her teeth in the matador's arm, punishing his swelling biceps. Exasperated by the pain the matador swore a big oath, shaking the beautiful half-dressed woman from him, whose snake-like golden hair stood up round her head like that of a drunken bacchante.

Doña Sol seemed suddenly to awake.

"Poor fellow! I have hurt you. And it was I!... I who am sometimes mad! Let me kiss the bite to cure it. Let me kiss all your glorious scars. My poor little brute, it made you cry out!"

And the beautiful fury suddenly became tender and gentle, purring round the torero like a kitten.

One evening, finding her inclined to be confidential, and feeling some curiosity as to her past, he questioned her as to the kings and other great personages, whom report said had crossed her path.

With a cold stare in her eyes she replied to his curiosity:

"What does it matter to you? Are you by any chance jealous?... And if it were true ... what then?"

She remained silent a long while, with a strange look in her eyes, the look of madness, which was always accompanied by extravagant thoughts.

"You must have struck many women," she said, looking at him curiously; "do not deny it, it interests me greatly! No, not your wife, I know she is very good, but all those that toreros mix with; women who love better when they are beaten. No? Say truly, have you never struck any one?"

Gallardo protested with the dignity of a brave man, incapable of hurting those weaker than himself. Doña Sol showed a certain disbelief in his asseverations.

"One day you will have to beat me.... I should like to know what it is" ... she said resolutely....

But her expression darkened, she frowned, and a steely gleam lit up the golden light in her eyes.

"No, my brute, pay no attention to me, and do not attempt it. You would be the loser."

The advice was just, and Gallardo had cause to remember it. One day, in a moment of intimacy, a somewhat rough caress from his fighting hand was enough to rouse this woman's fury, who was attracted by the man, and yet hated him at the same time.

"Take that." And with a fist as hard as a club she gave him a blow on the jaw from below upwards with a precision, which seemed inspired by a knowledge of the rules of boxing.

Gallardo remained bewildered by pain and shame, while the lady, as if she suddenly realized her unprovoked aggression, endeavoured to justify herself with cold hostility.

"It is to teach you better. I know what you toreros are. If I were to let myself be trampled on once, for ever after you would shake me like a gipsy of Triana. I am glad I did it. You must keep your distance."

One evening in early spring, they were returning from a trial of calves at one of the farms belonging to the Marquis, who with some other friends was riding home along the road.

Doña Sol, followed by the espada, turned her horse into the fields, delighting in the soft sward under their hoofs, which at this season was carpeted with spring flowers.

The setting sun dyed everything with crimson, lengthening indefinitely the shadows of the riders with their long lances over their shoulders, and the broad river half hidden among the vegetation rolled along one side of the meadows.

Doña Sol looked at Gallardo with imperious eyes.

"Put your arm round my waist."

The espada obeyed, and so they rode on, their horses close together, the woman watching their shadows thrown as one by the setting sun on the grass.

"It seems as though we were living in another world," she murmured,—"a legendary world, something like one sees on the tapestries, the loving knight and the amazon travelling together, their lances on their shoulders in search of adventures and dangers. But you do not understand all this—dunce of my heart. Answer truly, you do not understand me?"

The torero smiled, showing his beautiful strong teeth of luminous whiteness. She, as if attracted by his rough ignorance, drew closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder, shivering as she felt his breath on the back of her neck.

They rode on in silence. Doña Sol seemed to have fallen asleep on the torero's shoulder. Suddenly her eyes opened, flashing with that strange light which was always the precursor of the most extraordinary questions.

"Say! Have you never killed a man?"

Gallardo started, and in his astonishment disengaged himself from Doña Sol. Who! He?... Never. He had been a good fellow who had followed his profession without doing harm to anyone. He had scarcely even fought with his companions at the "capeas," when they held on to the peace because they were the strongest. He had exchanged a few blows with others of his profession, or fought a round in a café, but the life of a man inspired him with deep respect. Bulls were another affair.

"So that you have never felt the slightest wish to kill a man?... And I who thought that toreros...."

The sun had set, and the landscape, which before had seemed so brilliant, now looked dull and grey; even the river had disappeared, and Doña Sol spurred on her horse without saying another word, or even appearing to notice if the espada were following her.

Before the Holy Week holidays Gallardo's family returned to Seville. The espada was to fight at the Easter corrida. It was the first time he would kill in Doña Sol's presence since he had come to know her, and it made him doubtful of his powers.

Besides, he never could fight in Seville without a certain disquietude. He could accept an unlucky mischance in any other Plaza in Spain, thinking he would probably not return there for some time. But in his own native town, where his greatest enemies lived!...

"We must see you distinguish yourself," said Don José. "Think of those who will be watching you. I expect you to remain the first man in the world."

On the Saturday of "Gloria,"[88] during the small hours of the night, the enclosing of the cattle for the following day's corrida was to take place, and Doña Sol wished to assist as picqeur at the operation, which presented the further delight of taking place in the dark. The bulls had to be brought from the pastures of Tablada to the enclosures at the Plaza.

In spite of Gallardo's wish to accompany Doña Sol he was unable to do so; his manager opposed it, alleging the necessity of his keeping himself fresh and vigorous for the following afternoon. At midnight the road leading from the pastures to the Plaza was as lively as a fair. In the country villas the windows were lighted up, and shadows passed before them, dancing to the sound of pianos. In the little inns, whose open doors threw broad streaks of light across the road, the tinkling of guitars, the clinking of glasses, and shouts and laughter let it be known that wine was circulating freely.

About one in the morning a rider passed along the road at a slow trot. He was "el aviso,"[89] a rough shepherd, who stopped before the taverns and gay country houses, warning them that the herd would pass in less than a quarter of an hour, so that lights might be extinguished and everything be quiet.

This order, given in the name of the national sport, was obeyed with far more alacrity than any one given by the authorities. The houses remained in darkness, the whiteness of their walls confounded with the shadowy mass of trees. The invisible people, assembled behind the barred and spiked window gratings, were silent in the expectation of something extraordinary. In the walks alongside the river the gas lamps were extinguished one by one as the shepherd advanced shouting the coming of the herd.

Everything was absolutely silent. Above the trees the stars were shining, and below on the ground only the slightest rustle; the faintest murmur betrayed in the darkness the presence of crowds of people. The wait seemed very long, till at last in the far distance, the faint sound of deep bells was heard. "They are coming! They will soon be here!"...

The clangour of the bells became louder and at last deafening, accompanied by a confused galloping which shook the ground. First of all passed several riders, with lances over their shoulders, who appeared gigantic in the darkness, their horses at full stretch. These were the shepherds. Then came a group of amateur garrochists, among whom galloped Doña Sol, delighted at this mad ride through the darkness, in which the single false step of a horse, or a fall, meant certain death from trampling beneath the hard hoofs of the fierce herd rushing blindly on behind in their furious career.

The herd bells rang wildly; the open mouths of the spectators, hidden by the darkness, swallowed large gulps of dust, and the furious mob of cattle rushed by like a nightmare of shapeless monsters of the night, heavy but at the same time agile, giving horrible snorts, goring at the shadows with their horns, terrified and irritated by the shouts of the young shepherds following on foot, and by the galloping of the riders closing the cavalcade who drove them on with their pikes.

The transit of this ponderous and noisy troupe only lasted an instant. There was nothing more to be seen ... and the populace, satisfied by this fleeting spectacle, came out of their hiding places, and many of the enthusiasts ran after the herd, hoping to see their entrance into the enclosures.

When they arrived near the Plaza the foremost riders drew on one side, making way for the animals, who, from the impetus of their rush, and their habit of following the "cabestros," engaged themselves in "la manga,"[90] a narrow lane formed of palisades leading to the Plaza.

The amateur garrochists congratulated themselves on the good management of the enclosing. The herd had been well rounded up without a single bull being able to stray, or giving work to picqeurs or peons. They were all well-bred animals, the best from the Marquis' breeding farms, and a good day might confidently be expected on the morrow. In this hope the riders and peons soon dispersed. An hour afterwards the surroundings of the Plaza were completely deserted, and the fierce brutes, safe in their enclosures, lay down to enjoy their last sleep.

On the following morning Juan Gallardo rose early. He had slept badly, with an anxiety that peopled his dreams with nightmares.

Why did they make him fight in Seville? In other towns he forgot his family for the moment; he lived as a bachelor in a room in an hotel completely strange to him, that contained nothing dear to him, and that reminded him of nothing. But here—to put on his fighting costume in his own bedroom, where everything about on the table reminded him of Carmen, to go out and face the danger from the house that he himself had built, and which contained all that was dearest to him in life, disconcerted him, and awoke in him as much trepidation as if he were going to kill his first bull. Besides, he was afraid of his fellow-townsmen, with whom he had to live, and whose opinion was more important to him than that of all the rest of Spain. Ay! and that terrible moment of leaving, after Garabato had put on his gala dress, and he descended into the silent courtyard.

The little children came to look at him, frightened by his brilliant clothes, touching him admiringly, but not daring to speak. His mustachioed sister kissed him with a look of terror, as if he were being taken off to die. His mother hid herself in the darkest room. No, she did not wish to see him; she felt ill. Carmen, deathly pale, was a little braver, biting her lips white with emotion, blinking her eyes nervously to keep back the tears, but when she saw him in the courtyard she immediately raised her handkerchief to her eyes, her whole frame shaking with the sobs she tried to suppress, and her sister-in-law and other women had to support her lest she should fall to the ground.

It was enough to make a coward of even the real Roger de Flor!

"Curse it all! Come along, man," said Gallardo. "I would not fight in Seville for all the gold in the world, were it not to give pleasure to my fellow-townsmen, and to prevent evil speakers from saying I am afraid of the public in my own town."

After rising, the espada had wandered about the house, a cigarette in his mouth, stretching himself to see if his muscular arms still retained their suppleness. He went into the kitchen and drank a glass of Cazalla, where his mother, active in spite of years and stoutness, was superintending the servants, and looking after the proper ordering of the house.

Gallardo went out into the patio, so fresh and bright, the birds were singing gaily in their gilded cages, a flood of sunshine swept over the marble pavement, and on to the fountain surrounded by plants where the gold fish swam in the basin.

The espada saw kneeling on the ground a woman's figure in black, with a pail by her side, washing the marble floor. She raised her head.

"Good-day, Señor Juan," she said, with the affectionate familiarity that all popular heroes inspire, and she fixed on him admiringly the glance of her solitary eye. The other was lost in a multiplicity of deep wrinkles which seemed to meet in the hollow black socket.

The Señor Juan made no reply, but turned away nervously into the kitchen, calling out to his mother:

"Little mother, who is that one-eyed woman who is washing the patio?"

"Who should she be, son? A poor woman with a large family. Our own charwoman is ill, so I called her in."

The torero was uneasy, and his look showed both anxiety and fear. Curse it! Bulls in Seville, and the first person he met face to face was a one-eyed woman! Certainly those things did not happen to any one else. Nothing could be of worse augury. Did they want his death?

The poor woman, shocked by his dismal prognostications and by his vehement anger, tried to exculpate herself. How could she think of that? The poor woman wanted to earn a peseta for her children. He must pick up a good heart and thank God, who had so often remembered them and delivered them from similar misery....

Gallardo was softened by her allusion to their former poverty, which always made him very tolerant to the good woman. All right, let the one-eyed one remain, and let what God willed happen. And crossing the patio with his back turned to her so as not to see that terrible eye, the matador took refuge in his office close to the vestibule.

The white walls, panelled with Moorish tiles to the height of a man, were hung with announcements of corridas printed on silks of different colours and diplomas of charitable societies with pompous titles, recording corridas in which Gallardo had fought gratuitously for the benefit of the poor. Innumerable portraits of himself, on foot, seated, spreading his cape, squaring himself to kill, testified to the care with which the papers reproduced the gestures and divers positions of the great man. Above the doorway was a portrait of Carmen in a white mantilla, which made her eyes appear darker than ever, with a bunch of carnations fastened in her black hair. On the opposite wall, above the arm-chair by the writing bureau, was the enormous head of a black bull, with glassy eyes, highly varnished nostrils, a spot of white hair on the forehead, and enormous horns tapering to the finest point, white as ivory at the base and gradually darkening to inky blackness at the tips. Potaje, the picador, always broke out into poetic rhapsodies as he looked at those enormous wide-spreading horns, saying that a blackbird might sing on the point of one horn, without being heard from the point of the other.

Gallardo sat down by the beautiful table covered with bronzes, where nothing seemed out of place save the thick coating of several days' dust. On the writing bureau, which was of immense size, the ink bottles ornamented by two metal horses, were clean and empty; the handsome pen tray, supported by dogs' heads, was also empty, the great man had no occasion to write, for Don José, his manager, brought him all contracts and other professional papers to the club in the Calle de las Sierpes, where on a small table the espada slowly and laboriously affixed his signature.

On one side of the room stood the library, a handsome bookcase of carved oak, through the never-opened glass doors of which could be seen imposing rows of volumes remarkable for their size and the brilliance of their bindings.

When Don José began to call Gallardo "the torero of the aristocracy," the latter felt he must live up to this distinction, educating himself so that his rich friends should not laugh at his ignorance, as had happened to sundry of his comrades. So one day he entered a book shop with a determined air.

"Send me three thousand pesetas' worth of books."

When the librarian looked slightly bewildered, as if he did not understand, the torero proceeded energetically.

"Books. Don't you understand me? The biggest books, and if you have no objection, I should like them gilt."

Gallardo was quite pleased with the look of his library. When anything was spoken of at the club which he did not understand, he smiled knowingly, and said to himself:

"That must be in one of the books I have in the study."

One rainy afternoon when he felt rather poorly, after wandering listlessly about the house, not knowing what to do, he had opened the bookcase and taken out a book, the largest of all. But after a few lines he gave up the reading, and turned over the pages, looking at the prints like a child who wants to amuse itself. Lions, elephants, wild horses with flowing manes and fiery eyes, donkeys striped in colours, regular as if done by rule.... The torero turned them all over carelessly, till his eyes fell on the painted rings of a snake. Ugh! The beast! The nasty beast! And he closed convulsively the two middle fingers of his hand, throwing out the index and little finger like horns, to exorcise the evil eye. He went on a little, but all the prints represented horrible reptiles, till at last with shaking hands he shut the book and returned it to the bookcase, murmuring: "Lizard, lizard," to dispel the impression of this evil encounter, and the key of the bookcase remained thenceforward in a drawer of the bureau, covered with old papers.

That morning, the time he spent in his study only served to increase his anxieties and trepidation. Scarcely knowing why, he had been considering the bull's head, and the most painful episode of his professional life had vividly recurred to his memory. What a sweating that brute had given him in the circus at Zaragoza! The bull was as intelligent as a man; motionless, and with eyes of diabolical maliciousness, he waited for the matador to approach him, when, not deceived by the red cloth, he struck underneath it directly at the man's body. The rapiers were sent flying through the air by his charges without ever succeeding in wounding him. The populace became impatient, whistling at and insulting the torero. The latter came behind the bull, following his every movement from one side of the Plaza to the other, knowing full well that if he stood straight and square before the animal to kill, that he himself would be the one to die; until at last, perspiring and fatigued, he took advantage of an opportunity to finish him by a treacherous[91] side blow, to the great scandal of the mob, who pelted him with bottles and oranges; a remembrance which made him hot with shame, and which, returning unluckily at this time, seemed to him of quite as evil augury as meeting the one-eyed woman, and seeing the snake.

He breakfasted alone and ate little as was his habit on the days of a corrida, and by the time he went up to dress the women had disappeared. Ay! how they hated that brilliant costume, kept so carefully wrapped up in linen. Splendid tools which had built up the luxury of the family!

The farewells were, as usual, disconcerting and troubling for Gallardo. The flight of the women not to see him come down, Carmen's attempts at fortitude, accompanying him as far as the door, the wondering curiosity of the little nephews, everything irritated the torero, grown arrogant and hectoring as he saw the danger approaching.

"One would think I was being taken to the gibbet! Good-bye for the present. Calm yourselves. Nothing will happen."

And he got into the carriage, making way for himself through the friends and neighbours assembled in front of the house to wish "Señor Juan" good luck.

The afternoons when the espada fought in Seville were the most agonizing for the family. When he fought away from home they were obliged to resign themselves patiently to wait for the evening telegram. Here, the danger being close at hand, a desperate anxiety for news awoke, and the necessity of hearing every few minutes how the corrida was going on.

The saddler, dressed as a gentleman, in a suit of light flannel and a silky white felt hat, offered to let the women know what was happening. After every bull that Juan killed he would send some urchin with news. All the same he was furious at the incivility of his illustrious brother-in-law, who had not even offered him a seat in the carriage with the cuadrilla to drive to the Plaza!

Gallardo knew the soil he was treading: it was familiar to him and was in a sense his own. The sand of the different Plazas exercised an influence on his superstitious temperament. He recalled the large Plazas of Valencia and Barcelona, with their white sand, the dark sand of the northern Plazas, and the red sand of the huge circus in Madrid. But the sand in Seville was different from any other; drawn from the Guadalquivir it was a bright yellow, like pulverized ochre. The architecture of the buildings, too, had a certain influence over him, some built in Roman style, others again Moorish, but the Plaza of Seville was like a cathedral full of memories. There the glorious inventors of different strokes had brought their art to perfection; the school of Ronda with its steady and dignified fighting, and the school of Seville with its light play and mobility which caught the public fancy; and it was there that he, too, this afternoon would be intoxicated by the applause, by the sun, by the roar of the crowd, possibly by the sight of a blue bodice and a white mantilla leaning over the edge of a box, and he felt capable of the most reckless hardihood.

Anxious to outshine his companions, and monopolize all the applause, Gallardo seemed to fill the circus with his agility and boldness. Never had he been in such form. Don José, after each one of his splendid strokes, stood up shouting, challenging invisible enemies hidden among the benches. "Who dares to say anything against him! The first man in the world!"

At Gallardo's order, El Nacional, by clever cloak-play brought his master's second bull in front of the box, where the blue bodice with the white mantilla was seated. It was Doña Sol, accompanied by the Marquis and his two daughters.

Followed by the eyes of the audience Gallardo approached the barrier holding his rapier and the muleta in one hand. When he arrived opposite the box he stopped, took off his montera, and offered the bull as homage to the Marquis' niece. Many people smiled maliciously. "Olé! the lad has good luck." He gave a half turn, threw his montera behind him when he had ended the "Brindis," and waited for the bull which the peons were bringing up to him by dexterous cloak-play.

Keeping the animal in a very limited space, he prevented it moving away from that spot, and successfully accomplished his task. He wanted to kill under Doña Sol's eyes, so that she should see him close at the moment when he defied danger. Every pass from his muleta drew forth exclamations of enthusiasm and cries of anxiety. The horn seemed to graze his chest; it seemed impossible that blood should not flow after the bull's attacks. Suddenly he squared himself, the rapier well in line forward, and before the public could give its advice, by shouts or counsels, he had thrown himself swiftly on the bull and for a few instants man and bull looked as one body.

When the man disengaged himself, the bull rushed forward with uncertain step bellowing, its tongue hanging from its mouth, and the red pommel of the rapier scarcely visible on the crest of its bloody neck. After a few steps it fell, the spectators rose to their feet as one man and a hail of applause and furious shouting burst from all parts of the amphitheatre. There was no one in the world as brave as Gallardo! Had that man ever felt fear?

The espada saluted before the box, opening his arms with the rapier and muleta in either hand, while the white-gloved hands of Doña Sol clapped feverish applause.

Then something small was passed down from spectator to spectator, from the box down to the barrier. It was the lady's handkerchief, the one which she had held in her hand, a small scented square of lawn and lace, passed through a diamond ring, which she presented to the torero in acknowledgment of his "brindis."

The applause broke out afresh on seeing this recognition, and the attention of the public, hitherto fixed on the matador, was now turned on Doña Sol, many turning their backs on the circus to look at her, and extolling her beauty with the familiarity of Andalusian gallantry. Then a small hairy and still warm triangle was passed up from hand to hand to the box. It was the bull's ear, sent by the matador in witness of his "brindis."

Before the fiesta was ended the news of Gallardo's great triumph had spread all over the town, and when the espada returned to his house half the neighbourhood had assembled to applaud him, as though they had all been at the corrida.

The saddler, forgetting his annoyance with the espada, admired him even more for his friendly relations with the nobility than for his exploits in the bull-ring. He had his eyes fixed on a certain appointment, and he made very little doubt about getting it, seeing his brother-in-law's intimacy with the best people in Seville.

"Show them the ring. My goodness, Encarnacion, what a present! It is worthy of Roger de Flor!"

The ring passed from hand to hand, with cries of admiration from the women. Carmen only pursed up her lips on seeing it. "Yes, it is very pretty," and she passed it on hurriedly to her brother-in-law, as if it burnt her fingers.

After this corrida, the travelling season began. Gallardo had more engagements than in any previous year. After the corridas in Madrid, he was to fight in every Plaza in Spain. His manager was nearly distracted over the railway time tables, making endless calculations for the future guidance of his matador.

Gallardo went from triumph to triumph. Never had he been in such good form! He seemed to have gained fresh strength. Before the corridas, cruel doubts overwhelmed him, tremors nearly akin to fear, such as he had never known in his early days, when he was only beginning to make his name; but as soon as he found himself in the arena, these fears vanished and an almost savage bravery possessed him, which was always accompanied by fresh laurels.

When his work was over in some provincial town, and he returned to the hotel with his cuadrilla, for they all lived together, he would sit down perspiring, wearied with the pleasant fatigue of triumph, and before he could change his gala dress, all the wiseacres in the locality would come to congratulate him. He had been "colossal." He was the first torero in the world! That estocada of the fourth bull!...

"Yes, indeed," said Gallardo, with almost childish pride. "Really I was not bad in that."

With the interminable verbosity of all conversations about bulls, the time passed without either the espada or his friends wearying of talking about the afternoon's corridas, or about those of previous years. Night fell, the lights were lit, but still the aficionados did not go. The cuadrilla, according to bull-fighting discipline, listened silently to all this babel of talk at the further end of the room. As long as the master had not given his permission, his "lads" could neither undress nor sup. The picadors, fatigued by the iron armour on their legs and the terrible bruises resulting from their falls from horseback, held their coarse beaver hats between their knees: the banderilleros, their skintight silk garments, wet with perspiration, were all hungry after their afternoon's violent exercise; all were thinking the same thing and casting furious looks at these enthusiasts.

"When on earth will those tiresome idiots leave? Curse their hearts!"

At last the matador noticed them. "You may go," he said. And the cuadrilla escaped, pushing each other like school boys let loose, while the maestro continued listening to the praises of the connoisseurs, and Garabato waited silently to undress him.

On his days of rest, the maestro, free from the excitements of danger and glory, turned his thoughts towards Seville. Now and then one of those short little perfumed notes came for him, congratulating him on his triumphs. Ay! If only Doña Sol were with him!

There were moments in which he felt compelled to confide his sadness to El Nacional with that irresistible impulse of confession which all feel who carry a heavy weight in their hearts.

Besides, now he was away from Seville, he felt a greater affection for the banderillero, a kind of reflected tenderness. Sebastian knew of his loves with Doña Sol; he had seen her, though from afar, and she had often laughed when Gallardo told her of the picador's originalities.

Sebastian received his master's confidences with severe looks.

"What you have got to do, Juan, is to forget this lady. Family peace is worth more than anything to us who knock about the world, constantly exposed to danger and liable to be brought home any day feet foremost. See! Carmen knows a great deal more than you think. She is perfectly acquainted with everything, and she has even questioned me indirectly as to your relations with the Marquis' niece. Poor little thing! It is a shame to make her suffer!... She has a temper, and if you arouse it, it may give you some trouble."

But Gallardo, away from his family, and with his thoughts dominated by the remembrance of Doña Sol, did not seem to understand the dangers of which El Nacional spoke, and shrugged his shoulders at these sentimental scruples. He felt the need of speaking of his remembrances, of making his friend the confidant of his past happiness.

"You do not know what that woman is! You are an unlucky man, Sebastian, who does not know what is good. Take all the beautiful women in Seville together—they are as nothing. See all those we meet on our travels—neither are they anything. There is only one—Doña Sol, and when you know a woman like that, you do not want to know any others. If you only knew her as I do, gacho! Women of our class reek of health and clean linen, but this one!... Sebastian, this one!... Picture to yourself all the roses in the gardens of the Alcazar—No, something better still—jasmine, honeysuckle, all the bewildering perfumes of the gardens of Paradise, and those sweet scents seem to belong to her, not as if she put them on, but as if they were flowering in her veins. Besides, she is not one of those who once seen are always the same. With her there is always something still to desire, something to hope for, something which is never attained. I cannot, Sebastian, express myself better.... But you do not know what a great lady is; so don't preach any more, and shut your beak."

Gallardo no longer received any letters from Seville. Doña Sol was abroad. He saw her once when he was fighting in San Sebastian. The beautiful woman was staying in Biarritz and she came over with some French ladies who wished to know the torero. After that he heard very little of her; only from the few letters he got, and from the news his manager collected from the Marquis de Moraima.

She was at the seaside, then he heard she had gone to England, then to Germany, and Gallardo despaired of ever seeing her again.

This possibility saddened the torero, and revealed the ascendancy this woman had gained both over himself and his will. Never to see her again! Why then should he expose his life and become famous? Of what use was the applause of the populace?

His manager reassured him. She would return: he was quite certain. Even if it were only for a year, for Doña Sol, with all her mad caprices, was a very practical woman, and knew how to look after what belonged to her. She needed her uncle's assistance to disentangle the most involved affairs, both of her own and her late husband's fortune, produced by their long and expensive stay abroad.

The espada returned to Seville towards the end of the summer. He had still a good many corridas for the autumn, but he wanted to take advantage of a month's rest, during the absence of his family at the Baths of San Lucar.

Gallardo shivered with emotion when one day his manager announced the unexpected return of Doña Sol.

He went to see her at once, but after the first few words felt intimidated by her cold amiability and the expression of her eyes.

She looked at him as if he were different. In her glance a certain surprise at his rough exterior, at the difference between herself and this man, the matador of bulls, could be guessed.

He also felt this gulf which seemed opening between them. He looked at her as though she were another woman; a great lady of a different race and country.

They talked quietly. She seemed to have forgotten the past, and Gallardo did not dare to remind her of it, nor to make the slightest advance, fearing one of her outbursts of anger.

"Seville!" said Doña Sol. "It is very beautiful ... very pleasant. But there is more in the world! I warn you. Gallardo, that some day I shall take flight for ever. I guess that I shall be bored to death. My Seville seems quite changed."

She no longer "tutoyed" him, and it was many days before the torero dared during his visits to make the slightest allusion to the past. He confined himself to gazing at her in silence, with his moist and adoring Moorish eyes.

"I am bored. Some day I shall go away," she exclaimed at all these interviews.

Other times the imposing servant would receive the torero at the wicket and tell him the Señora was out, when he knew quite certainly that she was at home.

Gallardo told her one evening of a short excursion he was obliged to make to his farm of La Rinconada. He wanted to see some olive yards his manager had bought for him during his absence, and added to the property. He wanted also to look after the general work.

The idea of accompanying the espada on this expedition delighted Doña Sol. To go to that grange where Gallardo's family spent the greater part of the year! To enter with the startling scandal of irregularity and sin into the quiet atmosphere of that country house, where the poor fellow lived with his belongings!...

The absurdity of the wish decided her. She also would go. The idea of seeing La Rinconada interested her.

Gallardo felt afraid. He thought of all the farm people, of the gossips who would probably tell his family of this trip, but Doña Sol's glance beat down all his scruples. Who could tell? ... possibly this trip might bring on a return of their former intimacy.

All the same he wished to oppose one obstacle to this wish.

"How about El Plumitas?... According to what I hear, he is wandering round La Rinconada."

"Ah! El Plumitas!" Doña Sol's face, darkened by boredom, seemed to light up with an inward flame.

"How curious! I should be so delighted if you could present him to me."

Gallardo arranged the journey. He had thought of going alone, but Doña Sol's company obliged him to seek an escort, fearing some evil encounter on the road.

He looked up Potaje, the picador. He was extremely rough, fearing nothing in the world but his gipsy wife, who when she was tired of being beaten would turn and bite him. There would be no need to give him any explanations, only wine in abundance. Alcohol and his atrocious falls in the arena seemed to keep him in a perpetual muddle, as if his head were buzzing, and only permitted his few slow words and a cloudy vision of everything.

He ordered also El Nacional to accompany them, he would be one more, and was of tried discretion.

The banderillero obeyed from subordination, but he grumbled when he knew Doña Sol was going with them.

"By the life of the blue dove! To think of the father of a family mixing himself up in such ugly doings!... What will Carmen and the Señora Angustias say of me when they come to hear of it?"

But when he found himself in the open country, seated by the side of Potaje, in front of the espada and the great lady, his annoyance gradually vanished.

He could not see her well, wrapped up as she was in a large blue veil which covered her travelling cap, and falling over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beautiful.... And to hear them talk! What things she knew!

Before the journey was half over, El Nacional, in spite of his twenty-five years of conjugal fidelity, forgave his master's weakness, and quite understood his infatuation.

If ever he found himself in a like situation he would do exactly the same!

Education!... It was a great thing, capable of infusing respectability even into the most heinous sins.