"A poor man," said Doña Sol indifferently. "I scarcely remember him except as a rough uninteresting peasant. From a distance one judges things at their true value. What I do remember is the day on which he breakfasted with us at the farm."
Gallardo also remembered that day. Poor Plumitas! With what emotion he took a flower offered by Doña Sol ... because she had given the bandit a flower as she took leave of him. Did she not remember?...
Doña Sol's eyes expressed absolute wonder.
"Are you quite sure?" she asked. "Is that really so? I swear to you I remember nothing about it.... Ay! that sunny land! Ay! the intoxication of the picturesque! Ay! the follies they make one commit!..."
Her exclamations betrayed a kind of repentance, but she burst out laughing.
"Very possibly that poor peasant kept that flower till his last moment. Don't you think so, Gallardo? Don't say 'No.' Probably no one had ever given him a flower in all his life.... It is quite possible that that withered flower may have been found on his body, a mysterious remembrance that no one could explain.... Did you know nothing of this, Gallardo? Did the papers say nothing?... Be silent, don't say 'No'; do not dispel my illusions. So it ought to be—I wish it to be so. Poor Plumitas! How interesting! And I who had forgotten all about the flower!... I must tell that to my friend, who is thinking of writing a book about Spanish things."
The remembrance of that friend, who for the second time in a few moments came up in the conversation, saddened the torero.
He looked fixedly for some time at the beautiful woman, with his melancholy Moorish eyes, which seemed to beg for pity.
"Doña Sol!... Doña Sol!" murmured he in despairing accents, as if wishing to reproach her with her cruelty.
"What is the matter, my friend?" she asked smiling, "what is happening to you?"