Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/24

 "I’m going!" she said, rising.

"Going!" he cried, in wonder and dismay, his flushed face and his bald flushed forehead a picture, looking up at her.

But she had already turned, and was hurrying away towards the mouth of the exit-tunnel.

Owen came running after her, flustered, and drawn in all directions.

"Really going!" he said in chagrin, as she came to the high, vaulted exit-tunnel.

"I must. I’ve got to get out," she cried. "Don’t you come."

"Really!" he echoed, torn all ways.

The scene was creating a very hostile attitude in the audience. To leave the bull-fight is a national insult.

"Don’t come! Really! I shall take a tram-car," she said hurriedly.

"Really! Do you really think you’ll be all right?"

"Perfectly. You stay. Goodbye! I can’t smell any more of this stink."

He turned like Orpheus looking back into hell, and wavering made towards his seat again.

It was not so easy, because many people were now on their feet and crowding to the exit vault. The rain which had sputtered a few drops suddenly fell in a downward splash. People were crowding to shelter; but Owen, unheeding, fought his way back to his seat, and sat in his rain-coat with the rain pouring on his bald head. He was as nearly in hysterics as Kate. But he was convinced that this was life. He was seeing LIFE, and what can an American do more!

"They might just as well sit and enjoy somebody else’s diarrhœa" was the thought that passed through Kate’s distracted but still Irish mind.

There she was in the great concrete archway under the stadium, with the lousy press of the audience crowding in after her. Facing outwards, she saw the straight downpour of the rain, and a little beyond, the great wooden gates that opened to the free street. Oh to be out, to be out of this, to be free!

But it was pouring tropical rain. The little shoddy soldiers were pressing back under the brick gateway, for