"They tell me also that you go with loose women."
"Lies!... That might have been in former days before I knew you. Rascals! Curse them! I should like to know who the slanderers are who whisper such things to you...."
"And when shall we be married?" she continued, cutting short her lover's indignation by this query.
"As soon as the house is finished, and would to God that were to-morrow! That blockhead, my brother-in-law, never gets done with it. The rascal finds it profitable and rests on his oars."
"I will get everything into order when we are married, Juaniyo. You will see, everything will go on all right, and you will see how your mother loves me."
And so the dialogues went on, while they were waiting for the marriage of which all Seville was talking. Carmen's uncle talked over the affair with Señora Angustias, whenever they met, but all the same, the torero scarcely ever set foot in Carmen's house, it seemed as though some terrible prohibition forbade him the door, anyhow the two preferred to see each other at the grating according to custom.
The winter was passing by, Gallardo rode and hunted over the country estates of several wealthy gentlemen, who used the familiar "thou" with a patronizing air. It was necessary for him to preserve his bodily agility by continual exercise, till the time of the corridas came round again. He was afraid of losing his great advantages of strength and lightness.
The most indefatigable advertiser of his fame was Don José, the gentleman who acted as his agent, and who called him "his own matador." He had a hand in every act of Gallardo's, not even yielding any prior claims to "the family." He lived on his own income, and had no other employment than that of talking perpetually of bulls and toreros. For him there was nothing interesting in the world beyond corridas, and he divided the nations into two classes, the elect who had bull-rings, and the numberless others who had neither sun, gaiety, nor good Manzanilla, and yet thought themselves powerful and happy, although they had never seen even the worst run of novillos.
He carried to his love of "the sport" the energy of a champion of the faith, or of an inquisitor. Although he was young he was stout and slightly bald with a light beard; but this sociable man, so jovial and laughter-loving in ordinary life, was fierce and unbending on the benches of a Plaza, if his neighbours expressed opinions differing from his own. He felt himself capable of fighting the whole audience for a torero he liked, and he disturbed the plaudits of the public by unexpected objections, when those plaudits were given to any torero who had not been lucky enough to gain his affection.