“The Senhorita Leopoldina,” Juliana announced in a low voice, half opening the door.
Luiza sat up erect, startled. “What! Leopoldina!” she said. “Why have you admitted her?” She asked herself, while she was arranging the folds of her morning-gown, what Jorge would say if he knew of this visit. Heavens! he who had charged her so often not to receive this woman. But she was now in the parlor, and what was to be done?
“Very well,” she said aloud; “say I will be with her directly.”
Leopoldina was her most intimate friend. As children they had been neighbors in the street of the Magdalena, and school-girls together in the Patriarchal. Leopoldina was the daughter of the Viscount of Quebraes, who had been one of the pages of Don Miguel, and a man of bad reputation. She had contracted an unhappy marriage with a certain João Noronha, a clerk in the Custom House. It was known that she had lovers; it was whispered that she was an unfaithful wife. Jorge detested her. He had often said to Luiza, “Anything you like, but Leopoldina.”
Leopoldina was twenty-seven years old. She was not very tall, but she had the reputation of having the best figure of any woman in Lisbon. Her gowns were always becoming, and so close-fitting that they followed every line of her figure, encasing her form like a second skin. Her face was not pretty; it was, on the contrary, of a somewhat vulgar cast; the nostrils were too wide to be beautiful; and her complexion, of a rosy though not very clear brunette, retained almost imperceptible traces of the small-pox. But she possessed an incontestable attraction in her eyes, which were of an intense black, liquid, languishing, and shaded by long lashes. As she entered, Luiza ran towards her with open arms; they embraced each other warmly, and Leopoldina, as soon as she was seated, began a series of lamentations, folding and unfolding her light silk parasol. She had been indisposed, she said, ennuyée, and overwhelmed with annoyances; the heat was killing her. And Luiza, what had she been doing? Leopoldina thought her looking stouter. She observed Luiza attentively, wrinkling her brows as she did so, for she was somewhat near-sighted. Her lips, which were slightly parted, were of a beautiful red, though perhaps too full, and her teeth were small, white, and even.
“Happiness gives everything, even a good complexion,” she sighed, after her inspection was completed. She had come, she added, to learn the address of the French milliner who made Luiza’s bonnets. Besides, she was distressed at not having seen her friend for so long a time.
Luiza gave her the address of the milliner; her prices were moderate, she added, and she had taste. As the room was somewhat dark, she opened the blinds slightly. The covering of the furniture was of a dark green, with stripes; the paper and the carpet, of a foliage pattern, were of the same disagreeable color. On the dark background of the wall the gilded frames of two engravings, the “Medea” of Delacroix, and the “Martyr” of Delaroche, stood out in bold relief. There were also on the walls some illustrations of Dante by Doré. Between the windows was an oval mirror in which was reflected a porcelain Neapolitan dancing the tarantella.
Over the tête-à-tête was the portrait in oil of Jorge’s mother. She was represented sitting bolt upright in her black gown. One of her hands, of a deathlike pallor, rested under the weight of its rings on her knee; the other was lost to view amid the voluminous folds of lace, painted with much minuteness, that adorned her black satin mantilla. Her long and cadaverous countenance stood out in bold relief against the background of a crimson curtain, whose folds, drawn back with studied care, allowed a perspective of blue horizon, and trees with symmetrically rounded foliage, to be seen between them.
“And your husband, how is he?” said Luiza, seating herself beside Leopoldina.
“As little amusing as ever,” responded the other, laughing. Leaning towards Luiza, and slightly elevating her eyebrows, “Do you know that I have broken off with Mendonça?” she added, with a serious air.