"But what creature is that? And what riots are those thou art talking about?"
"Who can it be? Doña Sol; that great lady who makes so much talk. The niece of the Marquis of Moraima, the cattle-breeder."
And as the swordsman was smiling and silent, flattered by Nacional's exact information, the latter continued with the air of a preacher proclaiming the vanities of this world, "The married man should above all things seek the tranquillity of his house. Women! Liquid! They are all alike and it is nonsense to embitter one's life jumping from one to another. I am a married man and in the twenty-four years I have lived with my Teresa I have never been faithless to her even in thought, although I am a bull-fighter; and I had my day and more than one lass has cast tender eyes at me."
Gallardo burst out laughing at his banderillero. He talked like a father-superior. And was this the same man that wanted to eat the priests up raw?
"Nacional, don't be hard on me. Every one is what he is and since the women come, let them come. What does one live for? Any day he may go out of the ring foot foremost. Besides, thou knowest nothing of the affair, nor what a lady is. If thou couldst see that woman!"
Then he ingenuously added, as if he wished to counter-act the expression of scandal and sadness engraved on Nacional's countenance:
"I love Carmen very much, dost thou understand? I love her as well as ever; but the other I love too. That is different. I don't know how to explain it to thee. That's another matter. Drop it!"
And the banderillero could make no further headway in his expostulation with Gallardo.
Months before, when with the autumn came the end of the bull-fighting season, the swordsman had had an adventure at the Church of San Lorenzo. He was resting in Seville a few days before going to La Rinconada with his family. To kill more than a hundred bulls a year with all the danger and strain of the contest did not weary him so much as the ceaseless travel from one end of Spain to the other during a period of several months. These journeys were made in mid-summer, under a blistering sun, over parched plains and in old cars whose roofs seemed to be on fire. The water-jar belonging to the cuadrilla, filled at every station, was not enough to quench the thirst. Moreover, the trains ran crowded with passengers—people going to the fairs in the cities to see the bull-fights. Often Gallardo, for fear of missing the train, killed his last bull in one plaza, and, still dressed in his fighting costume, rushed to the train, passing like a meteor of light and color among the groups of travellers and baggage trucks, and changed his clothes in a first-class compartment under the gaze of the passengers, who were glad to travel with a celebrity.
When he arrived, worn-out, at some city where the streets were in festal array, decorated with banners and arches, he had to endure the torment of enthusiastic adoration. The connoisseurs and his personal adherents met him at the station and accompanied him to his hotel. They were well-rested and happy folk who grasped him by the hand and expected to find him expansive and loquacious, as though on meeting them he must perforce experience the greatest pleasure.