Juliana, dressed in her best, and wearing her new collar, entered the room and announced dinner.
Leopoldina rose. The announcement came in time, for she was dying of hunger. The view from the dining-room, through the open windows of which could be seen the green branches of the trees, the blue horizon flecked with white clouds, charmed her, and she praised it volubly. Her own dining-room was so dreary that it took away her appetite. It looked out on an alley, so that—
She pecked like a bird at the grapes, olives, and candied fruits, and her glance chancing to fall on the portrait of Jorge’s father, she said, unfolding her napkin,—
“How amusing your father-in-law must have been! He has the face of a monkey. What a long time it is since we have dined together!” she added abruptly. “How long ago is it?”
“Not since the year after my marriage,” answered Luiza.
Leopoldina colored slightly. In those days they used to see each other with frequency. Jorge allowed them to go together to shop, to the confectioner’s, to Graça. The recollection of this former intimacy brought to her mind their school-days. She had met Rita Pessara a few days ago, she said, with her nephew.
“Do you remember him?” she asked Luiza.
“Espinafre?”
“Espinafre or not, he was for the pupils of the school a man, an ideal, a hero; the girls all wrote love-letters to him, sent him drawings of hearts pierced by arrows, and ornamented his greasy cap with paper flowers.”
Leopoldina was in the humor for gossip; her glance was animated; she helped herself abundantly; then she took up a morsel here and there on the point of her fork, tasted it, put it down, ate slices of bread and butter. She was exhilarated by these recollections of her school-days. What happy times!