“Old Star that I learnt to ride on!” said Cherry indignantly. “What has that to do with it?”
“And besides,” resumed Alvar, perhaps a little wickedly, “bull-fights are usually on Sunday, and are quite as bad as billiards or the guitar, which you say in England are wrong.”
“These are frightful imputations on you, Cheriton,” said Mr Stanforth: “a tender heart and too strict a sense of duty. No wonder you are obstinate. But if what I have read be true, a bull-fight is a hard pull on our insular nerves sometimes, and I doubt if you are in condition for one.”
“I don’t want to see a bull-ring at Oakby,” said Cherry; “but Alvar is mistaken if he thinks I should mind it more than other people do. There is enough of a sporting element, I suppose, to keep one from dwelling on the details.”
“I see, Mr Lester,” said Gipsy, “that you don’t believe in the rights of women.”
“No, Miss Stanforth, I certainly don’t. I believe in my right to protect them from what is unpleasant.”
“But not to give them their own way! Papa, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to go and see horses killed on a Sunday, if Mr Lester does. But a bull-fight—the national sport of Spain—and the matadors who are so courageous—ah! it makes such a difference the way things are put.”
“You must learn to look at the essentials, my dear. But now shall we have a last stroll to the point to see the sunset?”
“You need not tell Granny if I do go to the bull-fight,” whispered Cherry, as Alvar helped him up, and gave him his arm across the rough shingles.