Already Don
Rodrigo in imagination saw his clean red Christian blood
bespattering that Hebrew floor, for he had no weapon save the
heavy Toledo dagger at his girdle, and Diego de Susan was not
alone.
It was, he felt, a ridiculous position for a Hidalgo of Spain.
But his dignity was to suffer still greater damage. In another
moment she had bundled him into an alcove behind the arras at the
chamber's end, a tiny closet that was no better than a cupboard
contrived for the storing of household linen. She had-moved with
a swift precision which at another time might have provoked his
admiration, snatching up his cloak and hat, and other evidences
of his presence, quenching the lamp, and dragging him to that
place of cramped concealment, which she remained to share with
him.
Came presently movements in the room beyond, and the voice of her
father:
"We shall be securest from intrusion here. It is my daughter's
room. If you will give me leave, I will go down again to admit
our other friends."
Those other friends, as Don Rodrigo gathered, continued to arrive
for the next half-hour, until in the end there must have been
some twenty of them assembled in that chamber. The mutter of
voices had steadily increased, but so confused that no more than
odd words, affording no clue to the reason of this gathering, had
reached the hidden couple.
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