The Toreador Becomes Ambassador

He turned and accompanied the officer through the wide door into the
lantern-hung grounds, passing between the groups which clustered
everywhere about small wicker tea-tables. There were no quiet or
secluded spots in the gardens of the Strangers' Club to-night, but after
a brief glance right and left the Captain led the way to a table in a
shadowed niche between two doors. The light there was more shadowed and
the tides of promenaders did not crowd so close upon it as elsewhere. As
the two came up a third man rose from this table and Manuel found
himself looking into the flinty eyes of Colonel Von Ritz.

Von Ritz spoke briefly. If Señor Blanco could spare the time, His
Majesty wished to speak with him.

The younger officer turned back into the casino and Von Ritz led the
toreador through the front gardens, where the tennis courts lay bare
between the palms. The acacias and sycamores were soft, dark spots
against the far-flung procession of the stars.

The street outside was crowded with fiacres and cabs. Von Ritz signaled
to a footman and in a moment more Blanco and his escort had stepped into
a closed carriage and were being driven toward the Palace. They entered
by a side passage and the Colonel conducted him through several halls
and chambers filled with uniformed officers, and finally into a more
remote part of the building where they met only an occasional servant.
At last they came into a great room entirely empty but for themselves.
About the walls hung ripened portraits. The decorations were of
Arabesque mosaics with fantastic panels of Moorish tiling. It might have
been a grandee's house in Seville, patterned on the Alcazar. Evidently
this was part of a private suite. Heavy portières were only partly drawn
across a wide window with the sill at the floor level, and through them
Blanco dimly saw a balcony giving out over a small garden, and
commanding more distantly the harbor and town lights below. From
somewhere in the garden came the splashing of a small fountain.