“In affairs of business, yes,” said Maria, with a look of firm confidence in her own opinion—that look of confidence which she has never lost, and I pray that she may never lose it while I remain with her—“but in the little intercourses of the world, no! A Spaniard never forgets what is personally due either to himself or his neighbours. If he is eating an onion, he eats it as an onion should be eaten.” “In such matters as that he is very grand, no doubt,” said I, angrily. “And why should you not eat an onion properly, John? Now, I heard a story yesterday from Don—about two Englishmen, which annoyed me very much.” I did not exactly catch the name of the Don in question but I felt through every nerve in my body that it was the man who had been talking to her on the plaza. “And what have they done?” said I. “But it is the same everywhere. We are always abused; but, nevertheless, no people are so welcome. At any rate, we pay for the mischief we do.” I was angry with myself the moment the words were out of my mouth, for, after all, there is no feeling more mean than that pocket-confidence with which an Englishman sometimes swaggers. “There was no mischief done in this case,” she answered. “It was simply that two men have made themselves ridiculous for ever. The story is all about Seville, and, of course, it annoys me that they should be Englishmen.” “And what did they do?” “The Marquis D’Almavivas was coming up to Seville in the boat, and they behaved to him in the most outrageous manner. He is here now and is going to give a series of fêtes. Of course he will not ask a single Englishman.” “We shall manage to live even though the Marquis D’Almavivas may frown upon us,” said I, proudly. “He is the richest, and also the best of our noblemen,” continued Maria; “and I never heard of anything so absurd as what they did to him. It made me blush when Don — told me.” Don Tomàs, I thought she said. “If he be the best of your noblemen, how comes it that he is angry because he has met two vulgar men? It is not to be supposed that every Englishman is a gentleman.” “Angry! Oh, no! he was not angry; he enjoyed the joke too much for that. He got completely the best of them, though they did not know it; poor fools! How would your Lord John Russell behave if two Spaniards in an English railway carriage were to pull him about and tear his clothes?” “He would give them in charge to a policeman, of course,” said I, speaking of such a matter with the contempt it deserved. “If that were done here your ambassador would be demanding national explanations. But Almavivas did much better;—he laughed at them without letting them know it.” “But do you mean that they took hold of him violently, without any provocation? They must have been drunk.”