They went into a café and mechanically ordered beer. The seats were red plush this time and much worn. All about them groups of whiskered men leaning over tables, astride chairs, talking.
"It's the gesture that's so overpowering; don't you feel it in your arms? Something sudden and tremendously muscular."
"When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on the bull and walked away dragging the red cloak on the ground behind him I felt it," said Lyaeus.
"That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon and purple cadences ... an instant swagger of defiance in the midst of a litany to death the all-powerful. That is Spain.... Castile at any rate."
"Is 'swagger' the right word?"
"Find a better."
"For the gesture a medieval knight made when he threw his mailed glove at his enemy's feet or a rose in his lady's window, that a mule-driver makes when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, that Pastora Imperio makes dancing.... Word! Rubbish!" And Lyaeus burst out laughing. He laughed deep in his throat with his head thrown back.
Telemachus was inclined to be offended.
"Did you notice how extraordinarily near she kept to the rhythm of Jorge Manrique?" he asked coldly.
"Of course. Of course," shouted Lyaeus, still laughing.