He wandered vaguely about the room with nervous step. Now and then he stopped to gaze vacantly at well known things amongst his luggage, and finally he threw himself into an arm-chair, as if seized with a sudden weakness. He looked often at his watch—not yet two o'clock. How slowly the time passed!
He longed, as a relief for his nervousness, for the time to come as soon as possible for him to dress and go to the Plaza. The people, the noise, the general curiosity, the desire to show himself calm and at ease before an admiring public, and above all the near approach of danger, real and personal, would instantly blot out this anguish of solitude, in which the espada, with no external excitement to assist him, felt himself face to face with something very like fear.
The necessity for distracting his mind made him search the inside pocket of his coat and take out of his pocket-book a letter which exhaled a strong sweet scent.
Standing by a window, through which entered the dull light of an interior courtyard, he looked at the envelope which had been delivered to him on his arrival at the hotel, admiring the elegance of the handwriting in which the address was written,—so delicate and well shaped.
Then he drew out the letter, inhaling its indefinable perfume with delight. Ah! These people of high birth who had travelled much! How they revealed their inimitable breeding, even in the smallest details!
Gallardo, as though he still carried about his person the pungent odour of the poverty of his early years, perfumed himself abundantly. His enemies laughed at this athletic young fellow who by his love of scent belied the strength of his sex. Even his admirers smiled at his weakness, though often they had to turn their heads aside, sickened by the diestro's excess.
A whole perfumer's shop accompanied him on his journeys, and the most feminine scents anointed his body as he went down into the arena amongst the scattered entrails of dead horses and their blood-stained dung.
Certain enamoured cocottes whose acquaintance he had made during a journey to the Plazas in the South of France had given him the secret of combining and mixing rare perfumes,—but the scent of that letter! It was the scent of the person who had written it!—that mysterious scent so delicate, indefinable, and inimitable, which seemed to emanate from her aristocratic form, and which he called "the scent of the lady."
He read and re-read the letter with a beatified smile of delight and pride.
It was not much, only half a dozen lines—"a greeting from Seville, wishing him good luck in Madrid. Congratulations beforehand on his expected triumph——." The letter might have been lost anywhere without compromising the woman who signed it.