It must have been the novelty of the scene that interested her. The light, the unusual and brilliant costumes, the agility of the actors, and the wonder of the sky, entered, probably, as component parts into any pleasure that she experienced. Certainly it could have been nothing else, for she was quick to avert her eyes whenever blood seemed imminent. The second bull, however, was far less active than the first. He had indeed accomplished a certain amount of destruction, but his attacks were more perfunctory than angered, and it was not until he had been irritated by the colored barbs that he displayed any lively sense of resentment. Then one of the banderilleros showed himself either awkward or timid; he may have been both; in any event his success was slight, and as the Spanish audience is not indulgent, he was hissed and hooted at. “Give him a pistol,” cried some—the acmé of sarcasm—“Torero de las marinas,” cried others. He was offered a safe seat in the tendidos. One group adjured the President to order his instant imprisonment. One might have thought that the tortures of the Inquisition could not be too severe for such a lout as he.
Maida, who was ignorant of the duties of a banderillero, looked down curiously at the gesticulating crowd below. The cause of their indignation she was unable to discover, and was about to turn to Mr. Blydenburg for information, when there came a singing in her ears. The question passed unuttered from her thoughts. The ring, the people, the sky itself had vanished. Near the toril, on a bench of stone, was Lenox Leigh.
VIII
An Unexpected Guest
Gradually the whirling ceased, the singing left her ears. Leigh raised his hat and Maida bowed in return. His eyes lingered on her a moment, and then he turned and disappeared.
“A friend of mine, Mr. Leigh, is down there,” the girl announced. Her husband looked over the rail. “He’s gone,” she added. “I fancy he is coming up here.”
“Who’s coming?” Blydenburg inquired, for he had caught the words.
“A friend of my wife’s,” Mr. Incoul answered. “A man named Leigh—do you know him?”
“Mrs. Manhattan’s brother, isn’t he? No, I don’t know him, but Milly does, I think. Don’t you, Milly?”
Milly waved her head vaguely. She indeed knew the young man in question, but she was not overconfident that he had ever been more than transiently aware of her maidenly existence. She had, however, no opportunity to formulate her uncertainty in words. There was a rap on the door and Leigh entered.
Mr. Incoul rose as becomes a host. The young man bowed collectively to him and the Blydenburgs. He touched Maida’s hand and found a seat behind her. A bullfight differs from an opera in many things, but particularly in this, that there may be exclamations, but there is no attempt at continuous conversation. Lenox Leigh, though not one to whom custom is law, said little during the rest of the performance. Now and then he bent forward to Maida, but whatever he may have said his remarks were fragmentary and casual. This much Miss Blydenburg noticed, and she noticed also that Maida appeared more interested in her glove than in the spectacle in the ring.
When the sixth and last bull had been vanquished and the crowd was leaving the circus, Mr. Incoul turned to his guest. “We are to dine at the Inglaterra, will you not join us?”
“Thank you,” Lenox answered, “I shall be glad to. I came here in the train and I have had nothing since morning. I have been ravenous for hours, so much so,” he added lightly, “that I have been trying to poison my hunger by thinking of the dishes that I dislike the most, beer soup, for instance, stewed snails, carp cooked in sweetmeats or unseasoned salads of cactus hearts.”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Incoul answered gravely. “I don’t know what we will have tonight. The dinner was ordered last week. They may have cooked it then.”
“Possibly they did. On a fiesta San Sebastián is impossible. There are seven thousand strangers here today and the accommodations are insufficient for a third of them.”
“I want to know—” exclaimed Blydenburg, always anxious for information. They had moved out of the box and aided by the crowd were drifting slowly down the stair.
At the salida Karl stood waiting to conduct them to the carriage.
“If you will get in with the ladies,” said Mr. Incoul, “Blydenburg and myself will walk. The hotel can’t be far.”
To this proposal the young man objected. He had been sitting all day, he explained, and preferred to stretch his legs. He may have had other reasons, but if he had he said nothing of them. At once, then, it was arranged that the ladies, under Karl’s protection, should drive to the Inglaterra, and that the others should follow on foot.
Half an hour later the entire party were seated at a table overlooking the Concha. The sun had sunk into the ocean as though it were imbibing an immense blue syrup. On either side of the bay rose miniature mountains, Orgullo and Igueldo tiara’d with fortresses and sloped with green. To the right in the distance was a great unfinished casino, and facing it, beneath Orgullo, was a cluster of white ascending villas. The dusk was sudden. The sky after hesitating between salmon and turquoise had chosen a lapis lazuli, which it changed to indigo, and with that for flooring the stars came out and danced.
The dinner passed off very smoothly. In spite of his boasted hunger, Lenox ate but sparingly. He was frugal as a Spaniard, and in the expansion
