warily on the watch, able by position and strength
to prevent what he might at any moment choose to think on infringement
of his rights. A sullen, grudging, silent, and jealous dog, Manvers
saw him, and asked himself how long she would stand it. At present she
seemed unaware of her surroundings.

He saw that she sat broodingly, as if ruminating on more serious
things, such as famine or thirst, her elbows on her knees and her face
in her two hands. That was the true gipsy attitude, he knew, all the
world over. But so intent she was, that she was careless of her
person, careless that her bodice was open at the neck and that more
people than Manvers were aware of it. A flower was in her mouth, or he
thought so, judging from the blot of scarlet thereabouts; her face was
set fixedly towards the town--too fixedly that he might care, since she
cared so little, whether she saw him there or not. And after all, not
she, but the manners of the game centred about her, was what mattered.

Manners, indeed! The fastidious in our young man was all on edge; he
became a critic of Spain. Where in England, France, or Italy could you
have witnessed such a scene as this? Or what people but the Spaniards
among the children of Noah know themselves so certainly lords of the
earth that they can treat women, mules, prisoners, Jews, and bulls
according to the caprices of appetite? That an Italian should make
public display of his property in a woman, or his scorn of her, was a
thing unthinkable; yet, if you came to consider it, so it was that a
Spaniard should not. Set aside, said he to himself, the grand air, and
what has the Spaniard which the brutes have not?

Hotly questioning the attendant heavens, Manvers saw just such an act
of mastery, when the lumpish fellow above the girl put his hand upon
her, and kept it there, and the others thereupon drew back and ceased
their tricks, as if admitting possession had and seisin taken, as the
lawyers call it. To Manvers a hateful thing. He felt his blood surge
in his neck. "Damn him! I've a mind----! And they pray to a woman!"

But the girl did nothing--neither moved, nor seemed to be aware. Then
the drama suddenly quickened, the actors serried, and the acts, down to
the climax, followed fast.

Emboldened by her passivity, the oaf advanced by inches, visibly. He
looked knowingly about him, collecting approval from his followers, he
whispered in her ear, hummed gallant airs, regale