“You should set an example of indignation!”
“I? I do not care what they do to amuse themselves. It does not interest me, as much, I think, as it did you, my brother.”
“No,” said Cherry slowly, “I understand a good many things by this. I should be as bad as any of them. But when a country encourages and allows such ‘amusements,’ when women look on and like it, one cannot wonder at Spanish cruelties. It appeals to everything that is bad in one.”
“You insult my country and your hosts! Don Cherito, such language is unpardonable!” exclaimed an unexpected voice; and Don Manoel came suddenly forward from one of the curtained doorways, close at hand. “What right have you, señor, to speak of our ancient customs in terms like these?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Cheriton, after a moment’s pause of amazement, “if I have said anything to annoy you; but—I was not aware that you were present. I was speaking to my brother.”
“Would you insinuate that I disguised my presence?” cried the Spaniard, with real rage in his tones, and a determination to show it.
Then Alvar fired up with the sudden passion that had always startled his English kindred.
“How dare you so address my brother! He shall say what he chooses!”
“He shall not—nor you either! You call yourself Spaniard—Andaluz—you claim rights in Seville, and listen with complacence to the cowardly scruples—”
Here Alvar broke in with much too rapid Spanish for the Englishmen to follow, interrupted as it was by Manoel’s rejoinder, and by furious gestures as if the disputants were going to fly at each other’s throats, while Mr Stanforth’s mild attempts at interposing with—“Come—come now; what nonsense! What is all this about?” were entirely unheard.