“And I am troubling her,” said Sebastião to himself, taking up his hat. “Do you want anything?” he said aloud. “Do you wish me to go for the doctor?”
“No; I shall lie down awhile, and it will pass away.”
Sebastião charged her above all things not to allow herself to get chilled. Perhaps it would be well for her, he added, to apply a mustard plaster, or a couple of slices of lemon, to the temples; and in any case, if she did not feel better, to send for him.
“It will be nothing. Come again, Sebastião, and don’t forget me.”
Sebastião went away, drawing a deep breath, and saying to himself,—
“Good heavens! I have not the courage to speak to her.” But chancing to raise his eyes, as he stood in the doorway, he saw before him the dark interior of the coal-shop, and the broad face of the coal-vender, attired in a white morning-gown, on the watch to see who came out of the house. On the floor above, the three Azevedos put their ringletted heads together, behind the old muslin window-curtains, in diabolical conclave; behind her window the professor’s servant was sewing, looking out of the corner of her eye at every passer-by; and from the furniture-shop came forth the hoarse sounds of the patriot’s bronchitis.
“A rat cannot pass,” thought Sebastião, “without all these people taking note of it. And what tongues! Come, I must make up my mind, and at once! To-morrow, if I can bring myself to it, I will speak plainly to her if she is better.”
On the following morning, when Juliana wakened her mistress at nine o’clock to give her a letter from Leopoldina, Luiza was in fact as well as ever.
Leopoldina’s servant Justina, a thin and vulgar-looking woman, with a thick mustache and a squinting eye, was waiting in the dining-room. She was a friend of Juliana. They never met without an exchange of kisses and compliments. After putting Luiza’s answer into a little basket which she carried on her arm, Justina said with a smile, as she arranged her shawl,—
“What is there new here, Senhora Juliana?”