Lucia clapped her hands to her heart when she heard of the outrage. “God grant,” she said with white lips, “that it was not an Italian who threw the bomb.” She is a Roman; her first fear, her first hope were for Italy.
“What was that thing Don Jaime said to you at the Paris, when I proposed going to the Youngs’ house?” I asked Patsy.
He said “Do not let her go; the police fear that a bomb will be thrown in the Calle Mayor.”
If the police knew so much, why could they not have averted the horror?
XVI
WEDDING GUESTS
“LOS Reyes! los Reyes! Bueno, Bueno!” Don Jaime waved his sombrero wildly over his head and ran across the wet grass, followed by Patsy, who had snatched off his Panama and was roaring as if this were a football game:
“Hip, hip, hurrah! The Queen, the Queen!”
It was the morning after the wedding; considering the hour—it was still early—there were a great many people sitting in the chairs or pacing slowly under the trees of the Recoletos. All Madrid was drawing its breath, trying to steady its nerve by a little air and exercise. Without warning, without escort, the King and Queen whirled by in an open automobile. The bride and groom had slipped out of the palace and had been driven to the hospital to see the eighty people who were wounded by the bomb that had been meant to kill them. They had flashed through the Puerta del Sol, through the most crowded quarter of the city, and were now returning to the palace, attended only by a chauffeur.
“Bravo va!” cried the seller of orgeat from his booth; then, yielding to enthusiasm, he vaulted over the counter, left the till unprotected, and joined in the chase.