Gallardo, with a memory for faces characteristic of a public man, recognized them and permitted their familiarity. They were comrades of his few school days or his youthful vagabondage.
"Business not going well, eh? Times are hard for everybody."
And before this friendliness could encourage them to greater intimacy he turned to Garabato who stood holding the gate open.
"Tell the señora to give thee a couple of pesetas for each one."
Then he went out into the street whistling, pleased with his generosity and the beauty of his life. He was detained on the next block by a couple of old women, friends of his mother, who asked him to stand as godfather to the grandchild of one of them. Her poor daughter was about to become a mother at any moment; her son-in-law, an ardent Gallardist, had come to blows several times going out of the plaza in defence of his idol but dared not speak to him.
"But, damn it! Do you take me for the director of an orphan asylum? I've got more god-children than there are in the poor-house."
To rid himself of them he told them to see his mamita. Whatever she said should stand! And he went on, not stopping until he reached Sierpes Street, bowing to some and giving others the honor of walking at his side in glorious intimacy before the gaze of the passersby.
He looked in at the Forty-five Club, to see if his manager were there. This was an aristocratic society of a limited membership, as its title indicated, in which the talk was only of bulls and horses. It was composed of gentlemen-amateurs and cattle-breeders, the Marquis of Moraima figuring preëminently, like an oracle.
On one of these walks, one afternoon, Gallardo found himself sauntering along Sierpes Street, and took a notion to enter the parish chapel of San Lorenzo. In the little square before it stood luxurious carriages. On this day the best families were wont to pray to the miraculous image of Our Lord Jesus of the Great Power. Ladies stepped out of the coaches, dressed in black, with rich mantillas; and men went into the church attracted by the feminine assemblage.
Gallardo entered also. A bull-fighter must take advantage of opportunities to rub elbows with persons of high position. The son of Señora Angustias felt the pride of a conqueror when rich gentlemen bowed to him and elegant ladies murmured his name, turning their eyes upon him. Moreover, he was a devotee of the Lord of the Great Power. He tolerated in Nacional his opinions on "God or Nature" without being much shocked, for the Divinity meant for him something vague and indefinite, like the existence of a great lord about whom one might listen calmly to all kinds of blasphemy, because he is only known by hearsay. But the Virgin of Hope and Jesus of the Great Power he had been accustomed to seeing since his earliest years, and these must not be maligned. The susceptibilities of the lusty youth were touched by the theatrical agony of the Christ with the cross on his back, the sweaty countenance, painful and livid like that of comrades he had seen stretched out in the infirmaries of the bull-plazas. He must be on good terms with this powerful lord and he fervently uttered several pater-nosters, standing before the image, with the candles like red stars reflected in the corneas of his Moorish eyes.