In the middle of spring the temperature suddenly fell, with the violent extremes of the uncertain and fickle Madrid climate.

It was very cold. A grey sky poured down torrents of rain, mingled with flakes of snow, and people who were already dressed in their light clothes, opened boxes and cupboards in search of cloaks and wraps.

For two weeks there had been no function in the Plaza de Toros. The Sunday corrida had been fixed for the first weekday on which it should be fine. The manager, the employÉs of the Plaza and the innumerable amateurs whom this enforced inaction put out of temper, watched the sky with the anxiety of peasants who are fearing for their harvest. A slight rent in the sky or the appearance of a few stars as they left their cafÉs at midnight raised their spirits.

"The weather is lifting.... We shall have a corrida the day after to-morrow."

But the clouds rolled together again, and the leaden sky continued to pour down its torrents. The aficionados were furious with the weather, which seemed to have set itself against the national sport. Horrid climate! which made even corridas impossible.

Gallardo had, therefore, a fortnight of enforced rest. His cuadrilla complained bitterly of the inaction. In any other town in Spain the men would have resigned themselves to the detention, because the espada paid all their hotel expenses in every place but Madrid. It was a bad custom initiated by former maestros living near the capital. It was supposed that the proper domicile of every real torero was in la Corte,[102] and the poor peons and picadors, who lodged in a boarding-house kept by the widow of a banderillero, eked out their existence by all sorts of petty economies, smoking but little, and standing outside the cafÉ doors. They thought of their families with the avarice of men who only receive a few coins in exchange for their blood. By the time these two corridas had come off they would already have devoured their earnings in anticipation.

The espada was equally ill-humoured in the solitude of his hotel, not on account of the weather, but on account of his ill luck.

He had fought his first corrida in Madrid with deplorable results, and the public were quite different to him. He still had many partizans of unquenchable faith, who rose in arms for his defence, but even those enthusiasts, so noisy and aggressive the previous year, now showed a certain reserve, and when they found occasion to applaud him they did so timidly. On the other hand, his enemies and the great mass of the populace always anxious for danger and death, how unjust they were in their judgments!... How ready to insult him!... What was tolerated in other matadors seemed vetoed for him.

They had seen him full of courage, throwing himself blindly into danger, and so they wished him to be always, till death should cut short his career. He had played almost suicidally with fate, when he was anxious to make a name for himself, and now people could not reconcile themselves to his prudence. Insults were always hurled at any attempt at self preservation. As certainly as he spread the muleta at a certain distance from the bull, so certainly the protests broke forth. He did not throw himself on the bull! He was afraid! And it was sufficient for him to throw himself one step back for the people to greet this precaution with filthy insults.

The news of what had happened in Seville at the Easter corrida seemed to have circulated throughout Spain. His enemies were taking their revenge for long years of envy and jealousy. His professional companions whom he had often forced into danger from a feeling of emulation now babbled with hypocritical expressions of pity about Gallardo's decadence. His courage had given out! His last cogida had made him over prudent. And the audience, influenced by these rumours, now fixed their eyes on the torero as soon as he entered the Plaza, predisposed to find anything he did bad, just as previously they had applauded even his faults.

The fickleness so characteristic of mobs had much to say to this change of opinion. The people were tired of watching Gallardo's courage, and now they enjoyed watching his fear—or his prudence—as if it made themselves the braver.

The public never thought he was close enough to his bull. He must throw himself better on it! And when he, overcoming by sheer strength of will that nervousness which longed to fly from danger, had succeeded in killing a bull as in former days, the ovation was neither so prolonged nor so vehement. He seemed to have broken the current of enthusiasm which had formerly existed between himself and the populace. His scanty triumphs only served to make the people worry him with lectures and advice. That was the way to kill! You ought always to kill like that! Great cheat!

His faithful partizans recognized his failures, but they excused them, speaking of the former exploits performed by the espada on his lucky afternoons.

"He is somewhat over careful," they said. "He seems tired. But when he wishes!"...

Ay! but Gallardo always wished. Why could he not do well and gain the applause of the populace? But his successes, that the aficionados thought a caprice of his will, were really the work of chance or of a happy conjunction of circumstances, of that heart-throb of the olden days which now he so very seldom felt.

In many of the provincial Plazas he had been whistled, the people on the sunny side insulted him by the tooting of horns and the ringing of cow bells whenever he delayed in killing a bull, by giving it half-hearted estocades which did not make it bend its knees.

In Madrid the people waited for him "with their claws," as he said. As soon as the spectators of the first corrida saw him pass the bull with the muleta, and enter to kill, the row broke out. That lad from Seville had been changed! That was not Gallardo; it was some one else. He shortened his arm, he turned away his face; he ran with the quickness of a squirrel, putting himself out of reach of the bull's horns, without the calmness to stand quietly and wait for him. They noted a deplorable loss of courage and strength.

That corrida was a fiasco for Gallardo, and in the evening assemblies of the aficionados the affair was much canvassed. The old people who thought everything in the present day was bad spoke of the cowardice of modern toreros. They presented themselves with mad daring, but as soon as they felt the touch of a horn on their flesh ... they were done for!

Gallardo, obliged to rest in consequence of the bad weather, waited impatiently for the second corrida, with the fullest intention of performing great exploits. He was much pained at the wound inflicted on his amour-propre by the ridicule of his enemies; if he returned to the provinces with the bad reputation of a fiasco in Madrid he was a lost man. He would master his nervousness, vanquish that dread which made him shrink and fancy the bulls larger and more formidable. He considered his strength quite equal to accomplish the same deeds as before. It was true there still remained a slight weakness in his arm and in his leg, but that would soon pass off.

His manager suggested his accepting a very advantageous contract for certain Plazas in America, but he refused. No, he could not cross the seas at present. He must first show Spain that he was the same espada as heretofore. Afterwards he would consider the propriety of undertaking that journey.

With the anxiety of a popular man who feels his prestige broken, Gallardo frequented the places where all the aficionados assembled. He went often to the CafÉ Ingles, which the partisans of the Andalusian toreros frequented, thinking his presence would silence all unpleasant remarks. He himself, modest and smiling, began the conversation, with a humility that disarmed even the most irreconcilable.

"It is quite certain I did not do well, I quite recognize it. But you will see at the next corrida, when the weather clears.... I will do what I can."

He did not dare to enter certain cafÉs in the Puerta del Sol, where aficionados of a lower class assembled. They were thorough-going MadrileÑos, inimical to Andalusian bull-fighting, and resentful that all the matadors came from Seville and Cordoba, while the capital seemed unable to produce a glorious representative. The remembrance of Frascuelo, whom they considered a son of Madrid, lived everlastingly in those assemblies. Many of them had not been to the Plaza for years, not in fact since the retirement of "El Negro." Why should they? They were quite content to read the reports in the papers, being convinced that since Frascuelo's death there were neither bulls nor toreros, Andalusian lads and nothing more, dancers who made grimaces with their capes and their bodies, but did not know how to stand and "receive" a bull with dignity.

Now and again a slight breath of hope revived them. Madrid was soon going to have its own great matador. They had discovered in the suburbs a "novillero," who had already done good work in the Plazas of Vallecas and Tetuan, and had fought in the Madrid Plaza at the cheap Sunday afternoon corridas.

His name was becoming popular. In all the barbers' shops the greatest triumphs were predicted for him, but somehow or other those prophecies were never fulfilled, either the aspirant fell a victim to a mortal "cogida" or dropped into being one of the loafers in the Plaza del Sol, who aired their pigtails while they waited for imaginary contracts, and the aficionados were free to turn their attention to other rising stars.

Gallardo did not dare to approach the tauromachic demagogy, whom he knew had always hated him and were rejoicing at his decadence. Most of them would not go to see him in the circus, nor admire any torero of the present day. Their expected Messiah must arrive before they returned to the Plaza.

In order to distract his mind Gallardo would wander in the evenings through the Puerta del Sol, and allow himself to be accosted by those bull-fighting vagabonds who assembled there, boasting of their exploits; they were all smart, well dressed, with a marvellous display of imitation jewellery. They all saluted him respectfully as "Maestro" or "SeÑo Juan"; some were honest fellows enough, who hoped to make a name for themselves, and maintain their families by something more than workmen's wages, others were less scrupulous, but all ended by borrowing a few pesetas from him.

In addition to the amusement offered by those would-be toreros, he was much diverted by the importunity of an admirer who pestered him with his projects. This man was a tavern-keeper at Las Ventas, a rough Galician of powerful build, short-necked and high-coloured, who had made a little fortune in his shop where soldiers and servants went to dance on Sundays.

He had only one son, small of stature, and feeble in constitution, whom his father destined to be one of the great lights of tauromachia. The tavern-keeper, a great admirer of Gallardo and of all celebrated espadas, had quite made up his mind to this.

"The lad is worth something," he said. "You know, SeÑor Juan, that I understand something about these matters, and I am quite willing to spend a bit of money to give him a profession ... but he wants a 'padrino'[103] if he is to be pushed, and there could be no one better than yourself. If you would only arrange a novillada in which the youngster could kill! Crowds of people would go, and I would bear all the expenses."

This readiness to "bear all the expenses" to help the lad on in his career had already caused the tavern-keeper heavy losses. But he still persisted, being supported by that commercial spirit which made him overlook the failures, in the hope of the enormous gains his son would make when he was a full-fledged matador.

The poor boy, who in his early years had shown a passion for bull-fighting, like most boys of his class, now found himself a prisoner to his father's tyrannical will. The latter had thoroughly believed in his vocation, thinking the boy's want of dash, laziness; and his fear, want of enterprise. A cloud of parasites, low class amateurs, obscure toreros whose only remembrances of the past were their pigtails, who drank gratuitously at the tavern-keeper's expense, and begged small loans in return for their advice, formed a kind of deliberative assembly, whose object was to make known to the world this bull-fighting star, now lying hidden in Las Ventas.

The tavern-keeper, without consulting his son, had organized corridas in Tetuan and Vallecas, always "bearing all the expenses." These outlying Plazas were open to all those who wished to be gored or trampled by bulls, under the eyes of a few hundred spectators. But those amusements were not to be had for nothing. To enjoy the pleasure of being rolled over in the sand, to have his breeches torn to rags, and his body covered with blood and dirt, it was necessary to pay for all the seats in the Plaza, the diestro or his representative undertaking to distribute the tickets.

The enthusiastic father filled all the places with his friends, distributing the entrances amongst comrades of the guild, or poor amateurs of the sport. Moreover, he paid those who formed his son's cuadrilla lavishly, all vagabonds, peons and banderilleros, recruited from among the loafers in the Puerta del Sol, who fought in their everyday clothes, whereas the youngster was resplendent in his gala costume. Anything for the lad's career!

"He has a new gala dress made by the best tailor, who dresses Gallardo and the other matadors. Seven thousand reals it cost me. I think he ought to be fine in that!... But I would spend my last peseta to get him on. Ah! if others had a father like me!..."

The tavern-keeper stood between the barriers during the corrida, encouraging the espada by his presence, and by the flourishing of a big stick. Whenever the youngster came to rest by the wall the fat red face of his father and the big knob of that terrible stick would appear like terrifying phantoms.

"Do you think I am spending my money for this? Why are you here giving yourself airs and graces like a young lady? Have some dash and enterprise, rascal. Go out into the middle and distinguish yourself. Ay! if I were only your age and not so stout...."

When the poor lad stood opposite the novillo, the muleta and rapier in his hands, with pale face and trembling legs, his father followed all his evolutions from behind the barrier. He was always before the boy's eyes like a threatening master, ready to chastise the slightest fault in the lesson.

What the poor diestro, dressed in his suit of gold and red silk, most feared, was his return home on the evenings when his father was frowning and dissatisfied.

He would enter the tavern wrapping himself in his rich and glittering cape, to hide the rags of shirt protruding through rents in his breeches, all his bones aching with tosses the young bulls had given him. His mother, a rough, coarse-faced woman, upset by her afternoon's anxious wait, would run to meet him open armed.

"Here's this coward!" roared the tavern-keeper. "He is worse than a 'maleta.' And it is for this that I have spent money!"

The terrible stick was raised furiously, and the golden suited lad, who just before had murdered two poor little bulls, endeavoured to run away, shielding his face with his arm, while his mother interposed between the two.

"Don't you see he is wounded?"

"Wounded!" exclaimed the father bitterly, regretting it was not the case. "That is for 'true' toreros. Put a few stitches in his rags, and see they are washed.... Just see how they have served the cheat!"

But in a few days the tavern-keeper had recovered his equanimity. Anybody might have a bad day. He had seen famous matadors in just as bad case before the public as his boy. And he forthwith arranged fresh corridas in Toledo and Guadalajara, he, as before, "paying all the expenses."

His novillada in the Madrid Plaza was, according to the tavern-keeper, one of the most splendid on record. The espada, by a lucky accident, had killed two young bulls moderately well, and the public, who for the most part had entered free, applauded the tavern-keeper's son.

As he came out of the Plaza his father appeared at the head of a noisy troup of loafers, whom he had collected from all round the neighbourhood. The tavern-keeper was an honest man in his dealings, and he had promised to pay them fifty centimes a head if they would shout "Vive El Manitas"! till they were hoarse, and carry the glorious novillero on their shoulders as soon as he came out of the circus.

"El Manitas," still trembling from his recent perils, found himself surrounded, seized and lifted on to the shoulders of the noisy loafers, and carried in triumph from the Plaza to Las Ventas, through the Calle de Alcala, followed by the inquisitive looks of the people on the tramways, which remorselessly cut through the glorious manifestation. The father walked along with his stick under his arm, pretending to have nothing to do with it, but whenever the shouting slackened he forgot himself and ran to the head of the crowd, like a man who does not think he is getting his money's worth, himself giving the signal, "Viva Manitas," when the ovation would recommence with tremendous shouting.

Many months had passed, and the tavern-keeper was still excited as he remembered the affair.

"They brought him back to the house on their shoulders, SeÑor Juan, just the same as they have often carried you; forgive me the comparison. You will see if the youngster is not worth something.... He only wants a push, for you to give him a helping hand."...

So Gallardo, to free himself, answered, promising vaguely; possibly he might manage to direct the novillada, but they could settle that later on, there was still plenty of time before winter.

One evening at dusk, as the torero was entering the Calle de Alcala through the Puerta del Sol he gave a start of surprise. A fair-haired lady was getting out of a carriage at the door of the Hotel de Paris.... DoÑa Sol! A man who looked like a foreigner gave her his hand to descend, and after speaking a few words walked away, while she entered the hotel.

It was DoÑa Sol. The torero could have no doubt on that point; neither could he have any doubt as to the relations subsisting between her and the stranger. So she had looked at him, so she had smiled on him in those happy days when they rode together over the lonely country in the crimson light of the setting sun. Curse him!

He spent an uncomfortable evening with some friends, and afterwards slept badly; his dreams reproducing many scenes of the past. When he awoke the dull grey light was coming in through the window, rain mingled with snow was pouring down in torrents, everything looked black, the sky, the opposite walls, the muddy pavement, the umbrellas, even the smart carriages rattling along.

Eleven o'clock. Suppose he went to see DoÑa Sol? Why not! The night before he had angrily rejected this thought. It would be lowering himself. She had gone away without any explanation, and afterwards, knowing him to be in danger of death, she had scarcely enquired after him. Only a telegram just at first, not even a short letter, not even a line. She who was so fond of writing to her friends. No, he would not go to see her.

But his strength of will seemed to have evaporated during the night. Why not? he asked himself once again. He must see her again. Among all the women he had known she stood first, attracting him with a strength quite different from anything he felt for the others. Ay! how much he had felt that sudden separation!

His cruel "cogida" in the Plaza of Seville had cut short his amorous pique. Afterwards his illness, and his tender approximation to Carmen during his convalescence, had resigned him to his misfortune; but to forget her ... that—never. He had done his best to forget the past, but any slight circumstance, a lady on horseback galloping past—a fair-haired Englishwoman in the street, the constant intercourse with all those young men who were her relations, everything recalled the image of DoÑa Sol! Ay! that woman!... Never should he meet her like again. Losing her, Gallardo seemed to have gone back in his life, he was no longer the same. He even attributed to her desertion his fiascos in his art. When he had her he was braver, but when the fair-haired gachi left him his ill luck began. He firmly believed that if she returned his glorious days would also come back. His superstitious heart believed this most firmly.

Possibly his longing to see her was a happy inspiration, like those heart-throbs which had so often carried him on to glory in the circus. Again, why not? Possibly DoÑa Sol seeing him again after a long absence ... who could tell!... The first time they had seen each other alone together it had been so.

And so Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, took his way towards the Hotel de Paris, situated at a short distance from his own.

He had to wait nearly half an hour on a divan in the hall, under the curious eyes of the hotel employÉs and guests, who turned to look at him as they heard his name.

Finally a servant showed him into the lift, and took him up to a small sitting-room on the first floor, from whose windows he could see all the restless life of the Puerta del Sol.

At last a little door opened and DoÑa Sol appeared amid a rustling of silks, and the delicate perfume which seemed to belong to her fresh pink skin; radiant in the beautiful summer time of her life.

Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, looking her up and down as one who had not forgotten the smallest detail. She was just the same as in Seville!... No, even more beautiful in his eyes, with the added temptation of her long absence.

She was dressed in much the same elegant negligÉ, with the same strange jewels as on the night when he had first seen her, with gold embroidered papouches on her pretty feet. She stretched out her hand with cold amiability.

"How are you, Gallardo?... I knew you were in Madrid, for I had seen you."

She no longer used the familiar "tu," to which he had responded with the respectful address of a lover of inferior class. That "usted," which seemed to make them equals, drove the torero to despair. He had wished to be as a servant raised by love to the arms of the great lady, and now he found himself treated with the cold but courteous consideration of an ordinary friend.

She explained that she had seen Gallardo, having been at the only corrida given in Madrid. She had been there with a foreign gentleman, who wished to know Spanish things: a friend who was accompanying her on her journey, but who was living at another hotel.

Gallardo replied by a nod. He knew that foreigner—he had seen him with her.

There was a long silence between the two, neither knowing what to say. DoÑa Sol was the first to break it.

She thought the torero looking very well: she remembered vaguely having heard something about an accident, indeed she was almost sure that she had sent a telegram to enquire. But, really, with the life she led, with constant changes of country and new friendships, her memory was in such a state of confusion!... She thought he looked just the same as ever, and at the corrida he had seemed proud and strong, although rather unfortunate. But she did not understand much about bulls.

"That 'cogida' was not really much?"

Gallardo felt irritated at the indifferent tone in which that woman made the enquiry. And he! all the time he was hovering between life and death he had thought only of her!... With a roughness born of indignation he told her about his "cogida" and his long convalescence, which had lasted the whole winter.

She listened with feigned interest, while her eyes betrayed utter indifference. What did the misfortune of that bull-fighter signify to her.... They were accidents of his profession, and as such could be interesting to himself only.

As Gallardo spoke of his convalescence at the Grange, his memory recalled the image of the man who had seen DoÑa Sol and himself there together.

"And Plumitas? Do you remember the poor fellow? They killed him. I do not know if you heard of it."

DoÑa Sol also remembered this vaguely. She had probably read about it in one of the Parisian papers, which spoke of the bandit as a most interesting type of picturesque Spain.

"A poor man," said DoÑa Sol indifferently. "I scarcely remember him except as a rough uninteresting peasant. From a distance one judges things at their true value. What I do remember is the day on which he breakfasted with us at the farm."

Gallardo also remembered that day. Poor Plumitas! With what emotion he took a flower offered by DoÑa Sol ... because she had given the bandit a flower as she took leave of him. Did she not remember?...

DoÑa Sol's eyes expressed absolute wonder.

"Are you quite sure?" she asked. "Is that really so? I swear to you I remember nothing about it.... Ay! that sunny land! Ay! the intoxication of the picturesque! Ay! the follies they make one commit!..."

Her exclamations betrayed a kind of repentance, but she burst out laughing.

"Very possibly that poor peasant kept that flower till his last moment. Don't you think so, Gallardo? Don't say 'No.' Probably no one had ever given him a flower in all his life.... It is quite possible that that withered flower may have been found on his body, a mysterious remembrance that no one could explain.... Did you know nothing of this, Gallardo? Did the papers say nothing?... Be silent, don't say 'No'; do not dispel my illusions. So it ought to be—I wish it to be so. Poor Plumitas! How interesting! And I who had forgotten all about the flower!... I must tell that to my friend, who is thinking of writing a book about Spanish things."

The remembrance of that friend, who for the second time in a few moments came up in the conversation, saddened the torero.

He looked fixedly for some time at the beautiful woman, with his melancholy Moorish eyes, which seemed to beg for pity.

"DoÑa Sol!... DoÑa Sol!" murmured he in despairing accents, as if wishing to reproach her with her cruelty.

"What is the matter, my friend?" she asked smiling, "what is happening to you?"

Gallardo sat with his head bent, half intimidated by the ironical flash in those clear eyes, shimmering like gold dust.

Suddenly he sat up like one who has taken a resolution.

"Where have you been all this time, DoÑa Sol?"

"All over the world," she answered simply. "I am a bird of passage. In numberless towns of which you would not even know the names."

"And that foreigner who accompanies you is ... is?"...

"Is a friend," she answered coldly. "A friend who has been kind enough to accompany me, taking advantage of the opportunity to know Spain; a clever man who bears an illustrious name. From here we shall go to Andalusia, when he has done seeing the museums. What more do you wish to know?"

This question, so haughtily asked, showed her imperious will to keep the torero at a distance, and to re-establish social distinctions between them. Gallardo felt disconcerted.

"DoÑa Sol," he moaned ingenuously. "What you have done to me is unpardonable. You have acted very badly towards me, very badly indeed.... Why did you fly without saying a single word?"

"Don't vex yourself like that, Gallardo. What I did was a very good thing for you. Do you not even yet know me well enough? Could one not get tired of that time?... If I were a man I would fly from women of my character. It is suicidal for a man to fall in love with me."

"But why did you leave?" persisted Gallardo.

"Because I was bored.... Do I speak clearly?... And when a person is bored, I think they have every right to escape in search of fresh distraction. But I am bored to death everywhere; pity me."

"But I love you with all my heart!" exclaimed the torero with a dramatic earnestness which in another man would have made him laugh.

"I love you with all my heart!" repeated DoÑa Sol, mimicking his voice and gesture. "And what then? Ay! these egotistical men that are applauded by every one, and who think that everything was created for them!... 'I love you with all my heart,' and that is sufficient reason for you to love me in return.... But no, SeÑor. I do not love you, Gallardo. You are a friend and nothing more. All the rest, all that down in Seville, was a dream, a mad caprice, which I hardly remember, and which you ought to forget."

The torero got up, going towards her with outstretched arms. In his ignorance he knew not what to say, guessing that his halting words would be quite inefficacious in convincing such a woman. He trusted in action, with the impulsive vehemence of his hopes and his desires, he intended to seize that woman, to draw her to him, and dispel with his warm embrace the coldness which separated them.

But she, with a simple turn of her right hand, pushed away the torero's arms. A flash of pride and anger shone in her eyes, and she drew herself up aggressively, as if she had been insulted.

"Be quiet, Gallardo!... If you go on like this you will no longer be my friend, and I shall have you turned out of the house."

The torero stood humiliated and ashamed; some time passed in silence, until at last DoÑa Sol seemed to pity him.

"Do not be a child," she said. "What is the use of remembering what is no longer possible. Why think of me? You have your wife, who I am told is both pretty and good, a kind companion. If not her, then others. There are plenty of girls down in Seville who would think it happiness to be loved by Gallardo. My love is ended. As a famous man accustomed to success your pride is hurt; but it is so; mine is ended. You are a friend and nothing more. I am quite different. I am bored, and I never retrace my steps. Illusions only last with me a short time, and pass, leaving no trace. I am to be pitied, believe me."

She looked at the torero with commiserating eyes, as if she suddenly saw all his defects and roughness.

"I think things that you could not understand," she went on. "You seem to me different. The Gallardo in Seville was not the same as the one here. Are you the same?... I cannot doubt it, but to me you are different.... How can this be explained?..."

She looked through the window at the dull rainy sky, at the wet Plaza, at the flakes of snow, and then she turned her eyes on the espada, looking with astonishment at the long lock of hair plastered on his head, at his clothes, his hat, at all the details which betrayed his profession, which contrasted so strongly with his smart and modern dress.

To DoÑa Sol the torero seemed out of his element. Down in Seville Gallardo was a hero, the spontaneous product of a cattle-breeding country; here he seemed like an actor. How had she been able for many months to feel love for that rough, coarse man. Ay! the surrounding atmosphere! To what follies it drove one!

She remembered the danger in which she found herself, so nearly perishing beneath the bull's horns; she thought of that breakfast with the bandit, to whom she had listened stupefied with admiration, ending by giving him a flower. What follies! And how far off it all now seemed!

Of that past nothing remained but that man, standing motionless before her, with his imploring eyes, and his childish desire to revive those days.... Poor man! As if follies could be repeated when one's thoughts were cold and the illusion wanting. The blind enchantment of life!

"It is all over," said the lady. "We must forget the past, for when we see it a second time it does not present itself in the same colours. What would I give to have my former eyes?... When I returned to Spain it seemed to me changed. You also are different from what I knew you. It even seemed to me, seeing you in the Plaza, that you were less daring ... that the people were less enthusiastic."

She said this quite simply, without a trace of malice, but Gallardo thought there was mocking in her voice, and bent his head, while his cheeks coloured.

Curse it! All his professional anxieties arose again in his mind. All the evil which was happening to him was because he did not now throw himself on the bulls. That is what she so clearly said, she saw him "as if he were another." If he could only be the Gallardo of former days, perhaps she would receive him better. Women only love brave man.

But he was mistaken, taking what was a caprice dead for ever, to be a momentary straying, that he could recall by strength and prowess.

DoÑa Sol got up. The visit had been a long one, and the torero showed no disposition to leave, content with being near her, and trusting to some lucky chance to bring them together again.

Gallardo was obliged to imitate her. She excused herself under pretext of going out, she was expecting her friend, and they were going together to the Museum of the Prado.

Then she invited him to breakfast another day, an unceremonious breakfast in her rooms. Her friend would come. No doubt he would be delighted to meet a torero; he scarcely spoke any Spanish, but all the same he would be pleased to know Gallardo.

The espada pressed her hand, murmuring some incoherent words, and left the room. Anger dimmed his sight, and his ears were buzzing.

So she dismissed him—coldly, like an importunate friend! Could that woman be the same as the one in Seville!... And she invited him to breakfast with her friend, so that the man could amuse himself by examining him closely like a rare insect!...

Curse her!... He would prove himself a man.... It was over. He would never see her again.