aken
their places, he was certain to be already in his, with his fiancee by his
side.

Covered with dust, burnt by the sun which had shone hotly since
Manzanares, all but spent with fatigue, I leaned back in my seat. For a
moment I did not hear what Dick was saying, although I was conscious that
he spoke; but suddenly the meaning of his words broke in on my tired
brain.

"It'll be two hours before the King and Queen leave their box and lesser
folks can move," he said. "I'm not going to have you sitting here in the
heat and dust."

"I must wait till they come out," I answered dully. "It's the only way."

"No, it isn't. I told you Pilar'd sent me a ticket. The card says
'_sombra_,' so the seat's in the shade all right, and you're going to have
it."

"But you?" I said. "Pilar would never forgive me--"

"She'd never forgive me if I didn't hand it over to you. But I'll get in
somehow. It can cost me fifty dollars if it likes to slip past a
policeman, but I guess the price won't stop me. I don't mind if I stand up
in the _callijon_. I'm tall enough to see all I want, and more; and if a
bull jumps over the _barrera_, as one did at Seville the other day, my
legs are long enough to save me."

Ropes was to stay with the car and wait until we came again. Before that
time my fate would be decided. Nothing could keep me from meeting Monica
now; and nothing should keep her from me, if she loved me. If not--if after
all I had been dreaming, why, she would be the Duchess of Carmona
to-morrow.

Under horses' noses, between backs and bonnets of motors, we edged our way
through the dense crowd of vehicles and people massed together on the
baking plain outside the bull-ring. The circle which had been cleared for
royalty had filled again now, like a sandbank which has caved in upon
itself; but the spectacle on the other side of those steep brown walls had
begun, and the main entrance was comparatively clear.

Armed with the ticket engraved with the magic words "Corrida Real" over a
black and white sketch of a mounted picador, I was allowed to enter. But
when I had passed along a corridor and through a door which opened into a
crowded _tendido_, I heard Dick's voice at my ear. "Only twenty-five
dollars after all," said he, "and I can sit on the steps. Grand! We're
next to _Tendido_ Number 9. I see Pilar; look--close to the end, front
row."

After the silent rooms of the old Moorish house and the little _patio_
with its tinkling