“Very good, Sebastião; continue.”
There was a pause. The bald individual contemplated the stuccoed ceiling, which was blackened by smoke and by fly-marks, stroking his gray beard with his dirty hand. His mourning necktie was fastened by a pinchbeck pin. They could hear the sounds of a discussion going on in the billiard-room.
Sebastião, as if coming to a sudden resolution, said abruptly,—
“You must know, then, that now he goes there every day.”
Julião stretched himself on the divan where he was seated, and looked fixedly at Sebastião. The dark glasses of his spectacles glittered in the light.
“You want to confide something to me, eh, Sebastião?” he said. “You think the cousin is in love with her still?” he added, with a vivacity that had in it something of gayety.
Sebastião was shocked. “Julião!” he said severely, “one does not jest about these things.”
“But it is evident he is in love with her still,” replied Julião, shrugging his shoulders. “How innocent you are! He was her sweetheart when she was a girl, and now that she is married he wants to go back to their old relations.”
“Speak lower,” said Sebastião.
But the waiter still slept, and the bald individual was engrossed in his melancholy reading.