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Dolores she called it, at Alan's grave. In sorrow had she borne it; its true name was Dolores. It was a changed London to which Herminia returned. She was homeless, penniless, friendless. Above all she was declassee. The world that had known her now knew her no more. Women who had smothered her with their Judas kisses passed her by in their victorias with a stony stare.
But at that hour of general home-coming the square was crowded with hundreds of victorias, calèches, coupés, descending from the resplendent glory of the Arc-de-Triomphe toward the purple freshness of the Tuileries, crowding closely upon one another down the inclined surface of the avenue to the great cross-roads where the motionless statues, standing firmly on their pedestals with their wreath-encircled brows, watched them diverge toward Faubourg Saint-Germain, Rue Royale and Rue de Rivoli.
I have a strong presentiment that on that particular day I shall have a headache." And Berry did, a "distracting" headache, as she wrote Georgie over-night. She was the only member of the Early Dip Club who missed the picnic. Headaches are sad but convenient things. Eleven o'clock brought the girls to the Grays' front door, all ready for their start, in various village carts and victorias.
Along the street, heralded with tom-toms, came a procession of lurching camels, jogging donkeys, rattling carriages, acrobats leading dog-faced apes and trailing Arabs in fezes the pomp and pageantry of a pilgrim returning from Mecca. Motors, victorias, detachments of cavalry swept by in unbroken and spectacular show.
Many trains stopped, and people of the city mien descended from or entered smart traps, yellow depot-wagons or immaculate victorias, drawn by short-tailed, sophisticated steeds managed by liveried persons whose scraped faces were at once impassive and alert.
When that smouldering curtain of night has dropped, and the sea lies glooming, and the ships of all nations swing on their anchor chains, there are few lovelier spots than the Luneta. The wind comes soft as velvet; the surf croons a lullaby, and the little toy horses and toy victorias spin up and down between the palms, settling at last around the turf oval which surrounds the bandstand.
It is their practice in naming a price to make allowance for reduction; they expect to be bargained with, or cheapened at least one half. The ladies commonly make their purchases late in the afternoon or evening, stopping in their victorias at the doors of the shops, from whence the articles they desire are brought by the shopmen and deftly displayed on the street.
It is an idiosyncrasy of the cabs in Madrid that only the open victorias have rubber tires; if you go in a coupe you must consent to be ruthlessly bounced over the rough pavements on wheels unsoftened. It "follows as the night the day" that the coupe is not in favor, and that in its conservative disuse it accumulates a smell not to be acquired out of Spain.
Motors, beach-carts, and victorias were still arriving to discharge gaily dressed fashionables for the hour was early and up and down the inclined wooden walk leading from the bathing-pavilion to the sands, a constant procession of bathers passed with nod and gesture of laughing salutation, some already retiring to the showers after a brief ocean plunge, the majority running down to the shore, eager for the first frosty and aromatic embrace of the surf rolling in under a cloudless sky of blue.
Aye, where is she, the proud and powerful Gaul of the days of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, of the Sacrovirs, the Vindexes, the Civiles, the Victorias?" "Who is the present inheritor of Gaul's one-time valor? The Vagres, the 'Wolves-Heads, the 'Wolves! It is they alone who still carry on the struggle against the barbarians!"
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