t's more, I
grovelled. I called Vivillo a lamb, though at the moment he was looking
more like several dozen lions. I told her if she'd marry me, she could
have him and any other bulls sitting about on our hearthrug; that we'd
have a nice big one on purpose."

"That ought to be an inducement--even from a heretic."

"Oh, confound you, don't harp on that. I'm mad about the girl. I know all
you're suffering, and if I ever put on superior airs, I take them back and
swallow them."

Even a man heartbroken would have had to grin; and Pilar had persuaded me
not to be heartbroken yet. If I laughed, I sympathized too, and liked Dick
better than ever because we were eating the same bitter-sweet orange of
which the voice had sung. It seemed that Pilar had neither accepted nor
refused him, but had asked for time to think; and he would have been a
little encouraged if she had not suddenly said, "Don Cipriano _loves_
bulls."

At five o'clock we spun into Seville, with the car, for nobody knew at
what time the procession might begin; nobody ever did know, it appeared.
And Pilar was no longer merrily boyish, but feminine and seductive again
in her black mantilla.

The vast oblong of the Plaza de la Constitucion was already humming with
the excitement of a moving crowd. The lane between chairs and tribune was
thronged with the poor of the town and peasants from the country, who
would have no seats and must press for places to see the procession; but
there was no ill-natured pushing, and gentlest care was taken not to crush
the toddling, star-eyed children who tumbled under people's feet. Soldiers
laughed and edged their way past clinging groups of pretty girls. Civil
guards, looking as if they had stepped out of old pictures, strove to keep
order, their shouts lost among the cries which filled the air; cries of
water-sellers bearing big earthen vessels; cries of those who wheeled
cargoes of roasted peanuts in painted ships; cries of crab-sellers; cries
of shabby old men, and neat, white-capped boys, hawking fresh-fried
_calientes_, sugared cakes, and all kinds of _dulces_ on napkin-covered
trays.

English and American tourists in panamas wandered through the throng
searching for their numbered chairs; vendors of seats shouted reduced
prices; bareheaded women with brown babies in their arms offered
programmes of the week's processions; tattered boys shrieked the daily
papers, and coloured post-cards; while from the balconies of priv