This possibility saddened the torero, and revealed the ascendancy this woman had gained both over himself and his will. Never to see her again! Why then should he expose his life and become famous? Of what use was the applause of the populace?
His manager reassured him. She would return: he was quite certain. Even if it were only for a year, for Doña Sol, with all her mad caprices, was a very practical woman, and knew how to look after what belonged to her. She needed her uncle's assistance to disentangle the most involved affairs, both of her own and her late husband's fortune, produced by their long and expensive stay abroad.
The espada returned to Seville towards the end of the summer. He had still a good many corridas for the autumn, but he wanted to take advantage of a month's rest, during the absence of his family at the Baths of San Lucar.
Gallardo shivered with emotion when one day his manager announced the unexpected return of Doña Sol.
He went to see her at once, but after the first few words felt intimidated by her cold amiability and the expression of her eyes.
She looked at him as if he were different. In her glance a certain surprise at his rough exterior, at the difference between herself and this man, the matador of bulls, could be guessed.
He also felt this gulf which seemed opening between them. He looked at her as though she were another woman; a great lady of a different race and country.
They talked quietly. She seemed to have forgotten the past, and Gallardo did not dare to remind her of it, nor to make the slightest advance, fearing one of her outbursts of anger.
"Seville!" said Doña Sol. "It is very beautiful ... very pleasant. But there is more in the world! I warn you. Gallardo, that some day I shall take flight for ever. I guess that I shall be bored to death. My Seville seems quite changed."
She no longer "tutoyed" him, and it was many days before the torero dared during his visits to make the slightest allusion to the past. He confined himself to gazing at her in silence, with his moist and adoring Moorish eyes.