I had hesitated, but finally given in, and taken seats for it.

I felt a strong disinclination to witnessing what I knew would be merely another example of the loathsome barbarity of the human race, but it was my rule in life to see and study its different aspects, to add to my knowledge of it whenever possible, and so I consented with a sense of repulsion within me.  Suzee was in the wildest delight.  She had talked to the waiter, it seemed, and had heard from him wonderful stories of the big crowds of gaily dressed people in the large ring, of the music, of the gaily dressed toreadors, of the clapping of hands and the shouting.

“And you feel no sympathy with the bull that is going to be killed or the unfortunate horses?” I asked, looking across at her as we sat at luncheon.

Suzee looked grave.

“I didn’t think of that,” she said.

The great fault of the less guilty half of humanity—­it does not think! and the other half thinks evil.

“Well, think now,” I said sharply.  “Would you like to have your inside torn out for a gaping crowd to laugh at, to be tortured to death for their Sunday diversion?  For that is what you are going to see inflicted on the animals this afternoon.”

Suzee regarded me with a frightened air.

Presently she said, glibly: 

“Of course not, Treevor, and I am very, very sorry for the poor animals if they are going to be hurt.”

“Of course they are,” I said shortly; “that is what the whole city is going to turn out to see.”

I felt she had no real appreciation of the subject, and that any sympathetic utterance would be made to please me.  How I hate being with a companion who automatically says what will please me!  A servile compliance that one knows is false is more irritating to a person of intellect than contradiction.

How different Viola had always been!  In physical relations she had accepted me as her owner, master, conqueror.  She had never sought to deny or evade or resent the physical domination Nature has given the male over the female.  But her mind had been always her own.  And what a glorious strength and independence it possessed!  Not even to me would she ever have said what she did not believe.

Like the old martyrs, she would have given herself to the rack or the flames rather than let her lips frame words her brain did not approve.

Her mind and her opinions were her own, not to be bought from her at any price whatever, and, as such, they were worth something.

The assent or dissent of the fool who agrees or disagrees from fear or love is worth nothing when you’ve got it.

We finished our luncheon and then, in a hired carriage, drove to the Plaza de Toros.

I, with a feeling of cold depression, Suzee, gaily dressed and in the highest spirits.

All the city was streaming out in splendid carriage or miserable shay.  Rich and cultured, poor and illiterate, human beings are all alike in their love of butchery and blood.  We reached the great ragged stretch of open ground, hideous and bare enough, and the structure of the bull-ring reared itself before us, a sinister curve against the laughing blue of the sky.