When the sixth and last bull had been vanquished and the crowd was leaving the circus, Mr. Incoul turned to his guest, “We are to dine at the Inglaterra, will you not join us?”
“Thank you,” Lenox answered, “I shall be glad to. I came here in the train and I have had nothing since morning. I have been ravenous for hours, so much so,” he added lightly, “that I have been trying to poison my hunger by thinking of the dishes that I dislike the most, beer soup, for instance, stewed snails, carp cooked in sweetmeats or unseasoned salads of cactus hearts.”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Incoul answered gravely. “I don’t know what we will have to-night. The dinner was ordered last week. They may have cooked it then.”
“Possibly they did. On a fiesta San Sebastian is impossible. There are seven thousand strangers here to-day and the accommodations are insufficient for a third of them.”
“I want to know—” exclaimed Blydenburg, always anxious for information. They had moved out of the box and aided by the crowd were drifting slowly down the stair.
At the salida Karl stood waiting to conduct them to the carriage.
“If you will get in with the ladies,” said Mr. Incoul, “Blydenburg and myself will walk. The hotel can’t be far.”
To this proposal the young man objected. He had been sitting all day, he explained, and preferred to stretch his legs. He may have had other reasons, but if he had he said nothing of them. At once, then, it was arranged that the ladies, under Karl’s protection, should drive to the Inglaterra, and that the others should follow on foot.
Half an hour later the entire party were seated at a table overlooking the Concha. The sun had sunk into the ocean as though it were imbibing an immense blue syrup. On either side of the bay rose miniature mountains, Orgullo and Igueldo tiara’d with fortresses and sloped with green. To the right in the distance was a great unfinished casino, and facing it, beneath Orgullo, was a cluster of white ascending villas. The dusk was sudden. The sky after hesitating between salmon and turquoise had chosen a lapis lazuli, which it changed to indigo, and with that for flooring the stars came out and danced.
The dinner passed off very smoothly. In spite of his boasted hunger, Lenox ate but sparingly. He was frugal as a Spaniard, and in the expansion which the heavy wine of the country will sometimes cause, Mr. Blydenburg declared that he looked like one. Each of the party had his or her little say about the corrida and its emotions, and Blydenburg, after discoursing with much learning on the subject, declared, to whomsoever would listen, that for his part he regretted the gladiators of Rome. As a topic, the bull fight was inexhaustible. Every thread of conversation led back to it, and necessarily, in the course of the meal, Lenox was asked how it was that he happened to be present.