“Senhor Paula, it ought to weigh upon your conscience to speak so.” And the yellow countenance of the tobacconist assumed a severe expression of reproach.
“All that is talk, Senhora Helena,” exclaimed Paula in derisive accents; and he added roughly, “Why are there not more convents? Why does everything go topsy-turvy in those there are?”
“Senhor Paula!” stammered Helena, retreating. “It is scandalous! At night the nuns go by a subterraneous passage to meet the friars, and such orgies! You read that in every book!” And raising himself on the points of his toes, he added, “And the Jesuits, what do you say of them? Come!”
But he paused suddenly, and taking off his cap, said respectfully, “Your servant, Senhora.”
It was Luiza, who just then passed by, with her veil down. They looked after her in silence when she had passed.
“She is certainly very pretty!” murmured the tobacconist.
“She is not a bad piece of goods,” said Paula, nodding his head,—“for him who likes the stuff,” he added with disdain.
There was a pause, which Paula broke by saying roughly,—
“I am not the one to waste my time running after petticoats.”
He went into the shop whistling, to roll a cigarette; but pausing suddenly, he fixed his eyes with an expression of indignation on one of the windows of the house of the engineer, in which he had just seen the dissipated countenance of Pedro the carpenter. He turned to the tobacconist, with folded arms, nodding his head.