But on the following day Bazilio had the tact to make no allusion either to the proposed drive or to the country. Nor did he utter a single word about his love for her or about his hopes. He seemed in very good spirits. He had brought her the book of Belot, “La Femme de Feu.” Seated at the piano, he sang for her songs of the cafés chantants, of a somewhat free character, making her laugh by his imitations of the hoarse and shrill accents of the singers. Then he spoke to her a great deal about Paris; he retailed to her the gossip of the day,—anecdotes, love-affairs, fashionable news, in all of which figured duchesses and princes, who played tragic or sentimental roles, sometimes comic ones, but who were always surrounded by an ocean of delights. Of every woman whom he mentioned he said, “She was a woman of great distinction, and naturally she had a lover.” He made immorality appear like an aristocratic duty. Virtue, to listen to him, seemed the defect of a mean spirit, or the ridiculous prejudice of a bourgeoise temperament. Just as he was about to go he said, as if struck by a sudden recollection, “Do you know that I have still some thoughts of leaving Lisbon?”
“Why?” she asked, turning pale.
“What the deuce am I doing here?” he answered, with an air of indifference. He remained a moment with his eyes fixed on the floor; then, as if controlling himself, said,—
“Good-by, dearest,” and went away.
When Luiza entered the dining-room in the afternoon her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. On the following day it was she who spoke of the country. She complained of the heat, of the dust of Lisbon. How delightful it must be at Cintra!
“It is you who did not want to go,” he said. “We might have had a charming drive.”
It was because she was afraid, she answered. They might be seen.
“There is no danger,” he replied; “in a closed carriage, with the blinds drawn down.”
But that was worse than to be in the house, she returned. It was to suffocate, shut up in a box.
No, they might go to a villa, to the Alegrias, the villa of a friend of his who was in London; there would be only the farmer’s family there. It was in the neighborhood of Olivaes; there were long laurel-walks, delightful shade. They might take with them ices, champagne—