Possibly his longing to see her was a happy inspiration, like those heart-throbs which had so often carried him on to glory in the circus. Again, why not? Possibly Doña Sol seeing him again after a long absence ... who could tell!... The first time they had seen each other alone together it had been so.
And so Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, took his way towards the Hotel de Paris, situated at a short distance from his own.
He had to wait nearly half an hour on a divan in the hall, under the curious eyes of the hotel employés and guests, who turned to look at him as they heard his name.
Finally a servant showed him into the lift, and took him up to a small sitting-room on the first floor, from whose windows he could see all the restless life of the Puerta del Sol.
At last a little door opened and Doña Sol appeared amid a rustling of silks, and the delicate perfume which seemed to belong to her fresh pink skin; radiant in the beautiful summer time of her life.
Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, looking her up and down as one who had not forgotten the smallest detail. She was just the same as in Seville!... No, even more beautiful in his eyes, with the added temptation of her long absence.
She was dressed in much the same elegant negligé, with the same strange jewels as on the night when he had first seen her, with gold embroidered papouches on her pretty feet. She stretched out her hand with cold amiability.
"How are you, Gallardo?... I knew you were in Madrid, for I had seen you."
She no longer used the familiar "tu," to which he had responded with the respectful address of a lover of inferior class. That "usted," which seemed to make them equals, drove the torero to despair. He had wished to be as a servant raised by love to the arms of the great lady, and now he found himself treated with the cold but courteous consideration of an ordinary friend.
She explained that she had seen Gallardo, having been at the only corrida given in Madrid. She had been there with a foreign gentleman, who wished to know Spanish things: a friend who was accompanying her on her journey, but who was living at another hotel.