It was, she realized with an
involuntary quickening of her blood, Abrego y Mochales. A second man
followed, tendered him a curiously shaped object, and stood by the
waiting cab while the bull-fighter walked deliberately forward. He
stopped under the window and shifted the thing in his hands.
A rich chord of strings vibrated through the night, another followed,
and then a brief pattern of sound was woven from the serious notes of a
guitar. Lavinia shrank back within the room--it was, incredibly, a
serenade on the stolid Lungarno. It was for Gheta! The romance of the
south of Spain had come to life under their window. A voice joined the
instrument, melodious and melancholy, singing an air with little
variation, but with an insistent burden of desire. The voice and the
guitar mingled and fluctuated, drifting up from the pavement exotic and
moving. Lavinia could comprehend but little of the Spanish:
_"I followed through the acacias,
But it was only the wind.
.... looked for you beyond the limes----"_
The thrill at her heart deepened until tears wet her cheeks. It was for
Gheta, but it overwhelmed Lavinia with a formless and aching emotion;
it was for Gheta, but her response was instant and uncontrollable. It
seemed to Lavinia that the sheer beauty of life, which had moved her so
sharply, had been magnified unbearably; she had never dreamed of the
possibilities of such ecstasy or such delectable grief.
The song ended abruptly, with a sharp jarring note.
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