“You may depend upon us,” I said. “And pray don't trouble to leave at an inconvenient time. My friend and I promise you two hours' start.”
XXII
The Luck of the Dream-Book
It was late, and Monica must have gone to bed, therefore it was impossible to send her a message. Next morning I was up early, and had my coffee and roll on a little table in the patio, in the hope of snatching a word with her. But she came down as closely attended by her mother and the Duchess as if she had been a queen, and they her ladies-in-waiting. I had only a chance to say good-bye, as they were ready to drive off; and when I would have added a hasty explanation of our delay, the Duchess began to speak, so that Monica was whisked away without hearing.
“Wicked—old—cat!” was Pilar's exclamation when Dick told her the story of last night's dilemma. But when asked what she would have done in our place, her invention failed; and the Cherub approved our course.
The others had taken full advantage of our generosity, and had not left Toledo till nine. Therefore, according to our contract, we were obliged to wait until eleven, surprising Ropes by our procrastination.
But as we were on the point of spinning away from the hotel, a goat-herd turned the corner at the head of his shaggy flock. The man, tanned a dark bronze with constant exposure, wore his rags with the air of a king marching to conquest, and rather than show vulgar curiosity, strode past scarcely deigning a look at the automobile, though it was as likely as not the first he had ever seen. His goats, equally unconcerned, strayed among our wheels without hurry, and when they chose clattered off with [pg 160]much play of little cloven hoofs on cobblestones. A sharper note of contrast could hardly have been struck, Dick and I said to each other. A meeting between the automobile, latest product of man's restless invention, made to fly across states and continents, and the goat-herd whose knowledge of the world might extend ten miles beyond the place where, since his birth, he had carried on one of the most ancient occupations on the globe. So the ages seemed united, and Virgil and Theocritus brought suddenly face to face with Maeterlinck and Henley; and an instant later we had taken a small excursion into the middle ages of superstition. Pilar told us gravely that in a volume of “Dreams and Love Lore,” valued beyond all other books by the young girls of Andalucía, one read that it brought good luck to lovers to meet a flock of goats when starting on a journey in the morning.
Thus encouraged to hope for what I dared not expect, we set off, again and again finding ourselves hard put to it to get the long chassis of the Gloria round sharp corners of narrow streets. More than once it could be done only by backing the car, a feat which was witnessed with cries of astonishment by a crowd of water-sellers with painted tin vessels, milkmen on donkey back, knife-grinders, and Murillo cherubs who were following to see us off. Thus attended we slid down the steep hill which twisted past the old fortifications of Toledo, and brought us out at last upon the Puente de Alcántara, that most wonderful bridge of all the world.