Sarita would have stayed to help the unfortunate pair, but the danger of the streets was too great, and I led her away.
The scene was repeated more than once, with variations mainly in the degree of violence used by the mob. More than once, too, we only just escaped finding ourselves in the midst of one of the innumerable street fights that occurred, where some man against whom the cry had been raised had friends, and, rallying them, shouted a counter charge against his accusers, and followed it up with an attack, in which knives were drawn freely on both sides and blood spilt.
Never was I more thankful in my life than when at length we reached the doors of the hotel, to which at last I had literally to force and fight my way through the mob still surging in the neighbourhood of the Opera House, and swarming all over the plaza where the hotel stood.
No sooner were we safe, however, and I stood a moment in the spacious hall of the hotel to recover my breath, than a fresh difficulty of a quite different character occurred to me. How should I explain matters in regard to Sarita to Mrs. Curwen and Mercy? I had scarcely mentioned her name to either of them; they knew nothing, of course, of the weird undercurrent of events; and yet here was I turning up with her at eleven o'clock at night, in defiance of all the conventionalities, and as the climax of a series of acts which must have appeared to them as the very type of eccentricity.
Besides, there was Mrs. Curwen's own undercurrent motive for her presence in Madrid.
CHAPTER XX
AT THE HOTEL DE L'OPERA
It is, of course, a very simple thing to laugh at the conventions, and to declare that it would be preposterous to give the least thought to them in the face of the really serious pass to which matters had come. I was trying to do that all the way to Mrs. Curwen's room as we followed the waiter, to whom I had given my name as Lord Glisfoyle.
But, as a matter of fact, I felt more nervous and uncomfortable at having to subject Sarita to the sharp inquisitive fire of the widow's eyes, than if I had been going to face a roomful of armed men. My companion saw my embarrassment.
"You are anxious how your sister will receive me?" she whispered with a quick discernment.