“I don't go to bull-fights,” said Pilar. “I love the poor bulls and horses so much, it would make me sad to see them die. Though, if I were a bull, I would myself choose a brave death in the arena, after a life of five glorious years, rather than the slaughter-house, or a weary existence of labour till old age or overstrain finished me. But I drive in the paseo on the bull-fight days, and for the feria. Ay de mi! A girl in Spain has few other chances to make herself pretty for the world to see, unless she lives in Madrid; and if it were not for the bull-fights, I suppose many girls would never get husbands. But, Our Lady be thanked, I do not have to look for one.”
Did she mean that there was any understanding with Don Cipriano?
I knew this was the thought which flashed through Dick's mind. And if Pilar had been desirable in motoring days, she was irresistible at home.
Before eight o'clock the Gloria was at the gates, and twenty minutes later we were on foot in the street of the Gran Capitán, mingling with the crowd who waited for the first procession of Semana Santa to pour out from the cathedral doors. But the crowd was not a dense one, and the face I hoped to see was not there. “It will be a long time before anything happens,” said the Cherub. “Here, when a thing should be at eight, it is at nine, or maybe half-past. What does a little time matter? But mass is being said. Who knows that the old Duchess may not have had a religious fit, and come to hear it, bringing her friends?”
No more was needed to make me anxious to go in; and we entered the cathedral, which is, to my mind, the most beautiful, inspiring, and poetic in the world.
The two O'Donnels flitted away in the dusk, mysterious as the twilight of the gods, and we guessed that they were going to [pg 236]hear mass. Soon they found us again. They had not seen those for whom we searched; but the procession was starting.
We made haste out before it, and none too soon, for it billowed forth after us in a glitter of gold and purple vestments, and tall, bleached palm-branches like beams of moonlight streaming against the blue of the morning sky.
“They're not here,” said Pilar, when the last gleaming crucifix and waving palm, blessed by the bishop, had disappeared. “I was sure they wouldn't come. And—it does seem hard to disappoint you—but I'm afraid they won't be in their box this afternoon. Oh, we shall go, of course! But that will be the time for the Duke to lend the Conde de Ambulato his box. Thursday will be the great day, when the King will be in the royal box, and will walk with his cofradia of the cigarette-makers before Our Lady of Victory. You know how anxious the Duke is to win back the favour of the royal family; and he'll hardly think it worth while to sit through the hours of a procession unless he can be next door to the King, with a chance of an invitation to his box.”
This was discouraging; still, I determined to be in the crowd during the afternoon; and I knew well that, though the splendid show of Semana Santa was an old story to the O'Donnels, they would not fail me for a moment.
Dick shamefacedly bought from one of many vendors an armful of blessed palms for Pilar to tie under the house windows, as a protection against the rage of thunder-storms throughout the coming year; and we drove to the country with the great glistening fronds blowing behind the motor-car like giant plumes.