Gheta back, to cover her indiscretion from Anna Mantegazza's prying sight. She sighed with inexplicable relief when she saw that the man had driven beyond them and that he did not turn.
A bull-fighter! A blurred picture formed in Lavinia's mind from the various details she had read and heard of the cruelty of the Spanish national sport—torn horses, stiff on blood-soaked sand; a frenzied and savage populace; and charging bulls, drenched with red froth. She shuddered.
"What a brute!" she spoke aloud unintentionally.
Gheta glanced at her out of a cool superiority, but Anna Mantegazza nodded vigorously.
"He would be a horrid person!" she affirmed.
"How silly!" Gheta responded. "It's an art, like the opera; he's an artist in courage. Personally I find it rather fascinating. Most men are so—so mild."
Lavinia knew that the other was thinking of Cesare Orsi, and she agreed with her sister that Orsi was far too mild. Without the Orsi fortune—he had much more even than Anna Mantegazza—Cesare would simply get nowhere. The Spaniard—Lavinia could not recall his name, although it hung elusively among her thoughts—was different; women of all classes, Bembo had said, pursued him with favors. He could be cruel, she decided, and shivered a little vicariously. She half heard Bembo's rapid high-pitched excitement over trifles.
"You are going to the Guarinis' sale to-morrow afternoon? But, of course, every one is. Well, if I come across Abrego y Mochales before then, and I'm almost certain to, and he'll come, I'll bring him. He's as proud as
