“Does the Senhora Juliana, then, expect a legacy?”
“Perhaps,” she answered dryly.
And, notwithstanding, she detested Luiza more and more every day. When she saw her in the morning adorning herself, perfuming herself with Cologne-water, looking at herself in the mirror, going about singing, she would leave the room, for she was seized with a fit of hatred, and she feared to betray herself. She hated her for her dresses, for her fine linen, on account of the man she went to meet, on account of all her comforts and pleasures. When Luiza left the house she would stand at the window gazing after her as she walked up the street, exclaiming,—
“Amuse yourself, wanton, amuse yourself! My day, too, will surely come!”
Luiza did, in fact, amuse herself. She went out every day at two in the afternoon. The neighbors would say to one another, as they watched her,—
“The engineer’s wife has her S. Miguel now.”
Hardly had she turned the corner than the council would meet to sit in judgment on her. They held it for certain that she went to meet a gentleman. But where? This was the constant theme of the coal-vender.
“At a hotel,” Paula said on one of these occasions. “There is a great deal of scandalous work going on in the hotels of Lisbon.”
The keeper of the tobacco-shop grew indignant: “A lady who had always been so virtuous!”
“A cow let loose can easily take care of herself, Senhora Helena,” Paula growled. “Women are all the same.”