ut if you will not be mine," resumed Juancho after a
pause, striking the table violently with his fist, "at any rate no one
else shall call you his." And with these words he got up and left the
room. "I will find him!" he muttered, as he strode down the stairs, "and
cool his courtship with three inches of steel."

All that night Juancho kept watch and ward in front of Militona's
dwelling, in hopes of falling in with her new admirer. Militona learned
this from old Aldonsa, who lived in the house, and she felt seriously
alarmed lest the handsome cavalier who had been so courteous to her at
the circus, and whom she could not remember without a certain interest,
should come to harm at the hands of the terrible torero who thus
tyrannised over her inclinations and scared away all aspirants to her
favour. Juancho, meanwhile, steady in his resolve to exterminate his
rival, had betaken himself, on coming off guard in the Calle del Povar,
to a tailor's in the Calle Mayor, and there had exchanged his usual
majo's dress for a suit of black and a round hat. Thus metamorphosed
into a sober citizen, he passed the day and evening in the Prado, the
most elegant coffee-houses, the theatres--in every place, in short,
where he thought it likely he should meet the object of his anger. But
nowhere could he find him, and that for the best of reasons. At the very
hour that the torero purchased the disguise intended to facilitate his
revenge, Don Andres, in the back shop of a clothes-dealer on the
Rastro--the great Madrid market for second-hand articles of every
description--donned the complete costume of a manolo, trusting it would
aid him in his designs upon Militona. Equipped in a round jacket of
snuff-coloured cloth, abundantly decorated with small buttons, in loose
pantaloons, a silk sash, a dark cloak and velvet-trimmed hat, which
garments, although not quite new, were not wanting in a certain
elegance, and sat trimly upon his well-made person, Andres hurried to
the Calle del Povar. He at once recognised the window described to him
by Perico; a curtain was drawn before it on the inner side, and nothing
indicated that the room had an occupant.

"Doubtless she is gone out," thought Andres, "and will return only when
her day's work is finished. She must be a needle-woman, cigar-maker,
embroideress, or something of that kind," and he walked on.

Militona had not gone out. She was cutting out a dress upon her little
table. The occupation req