Then this traveler hurried across the courtyard and out of the great gate to join the pilgrims of the richer sort at table in the dining-room of the restaurant.  There were four who looked up from their plates and bowed in the grave Spanish way when he entered the room.  Then all fell to their fish again in silence; for Spain is a silent country, and only babbles in that home of fervid eloquence and fatal verbosity, the Cortes.  It is always dangerous to enter into conversation with a stranger in Spain, for there is practically no subject upon which the various nationalities are unable to quarrel.  A Frenchman is a Frenchman all the world over, and politics may be avoided by a graceful reference to the Patrie, for which Republican and Legitimist are alike prepared to die.  But the Spaniard may be an Aragonese or a Valencian, an Andalusian or a Guipuzcoan, and patriotism is a flower of purely local growth and colour.

Thus men, meeting in public places have learnt to do so in silence; and a table d’hote is a wordless function unless the inevitable Andalusian—­he who takes the place of the Gascon in France—­is present with his babble and his laugh, his fine opinion of himself, and his faculty for making a sacrifice of his own dignity at that over-rated altar—­the shrine of sociability.

There was no Andalusian at this small table to serve at once as a link of sympathy between the quiet men, who would fain silence him, and a means of making unsociable persons acquainted with each other.  The five men were thus permitted to dine in a silence befitting their surroundings and their station in life.  For they were obviously gentlemen, and obviously of a thoughtful and perhaps devout habit of mind.  A keen observer who has had the cosmopolitan education, say, of an attache, is usually able to assign a nationality to each member of a mixed assembly; but there was a subtle resemblance to each other in these diners, which would have made the task a hard one.  These were citizens of the world, and their likeness lay deeper than a mere accident of dress.  In fact, the most remarkable thing about them was that they were all alike studiously unremarkable.

After the formal bow, Evasio Mon gave his attention to the fare set before him.  Once he raised his narrow gaze, and, with a smile of recognition, acknowledged the grave and very curt nod of a man seated opposite.  A second time he met the glance of another diner, a stout, puffy man, who breathed heavily while he ate.  Both men alike averted their eyes at once, and both looked towards a little wizened man, doubled up in his chair, who ate sparingly, and bore on his wrinkled face and bent form, the evidence of such a weight of care as few but kings and ministers ever know.