Gallardo also ordered Nacional to go with them; one more, and that was discretion beyond all doubt.
The banderillero obeyed from force of habit but grumbled when he heard that Doña Sol was going with them.
"By the life of the blue dove! Must a father of a family see himself mixed up in these ugly affairs! What will Carmen and Seña' Angustias say about me if they find it out?"
When he found himself in the open country, placed beside Potaje on the seat of an automobile, in front of the matador and the great lady, his anger little by little vanished. He could not see her well, hidden as she was in a great blue veil that fell from her travelling cap and floated over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beautiful. And such conversation! And such knowledge of things!
Before half the journey was over, Nacional, with his twenty-five years of marital fidelity, excused the weakness of the matador, and made vain efforts to explain his enthusiasm to himself.
"Whoever found himself in the same situation would do the same.
"Education! A fine thing, capable of giving respectability to even the greatest sins."
CHAPTER IX
BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT
LET him tell thee who he is—or else let the devil take him. Damn the luck! Can't a man sleep?"
Nacional heard this answer through the door of his master's room, and transmitted it to a peón belonging to the hacienda who stood waiting on the stairs.