“My lord and master is in Campo Grande, and I had an engagement to dine with—” She stopped with a smile, and turning to Luiza said to her frankly, “The truth is, I did not know where to go, and I had no money. The poor fellow, with nothing but his salary, cannot work miracles; and I said to myself, ‘Let us go to see Luiza.’ What have you for dinner—without ceremony, eh?”
“That of course.”
There was the same as always, she added, some delicious veal-cutlets.
“Have you no codfish?” said Leopoldina abruptly.
“There ought to be some. But why this caprice?”
“Tell them to prepare me a morsel. That stupid husband of mine detests codfish. I dote on it, fried, with oil and garlic.”
She stopped, as if some disturbing thought had suddenly occurred to her.
“What is the matter?” asked Luiza.
“That I cannot eat garlic to-day,” she answered. She went into the parlor, laughing, and taking one of Sebastião’s roses, fastened it in her bosom. She would like to have a parlor like this one, she thought, furnished in blue rep, with two large mirrors, and a portrait in oil of herself, full length, the shoulders bare, standing beside an elegant vase. She sat down at the piano and played a few fragments of “Blue-Beard.”
“Have you given orders to prepare the codfish?” she asked Luiza, as the latter entered.