“Donna Felicidade, the friend of the people here?” and he indicated with his thumb the house of the engineer.
“Yes, my friend, yes. She dislocated her foot in the Encarnação, and was obliged to remain there. Donna Luiza goes to see her every day. She has gone there just now.”
“Ah!” said Paula, slowly, after a moment’s silence. “Well, it is not a week since I saw Donna Felicidade going in there.”
“The accident happened the day before yesterday,” said Sebastião. He coughed, and added, attentively examining some engravings, “Donna Luiza went every day to the Encarnação before, but it was to see Donna Ana Silveira, who was sick. It is three weeks now since the poor girl has been acting as sick-nurse. She hardly leaves the Encarnação; and now, to cap the climax, Donna Felicidade!”
“I knew nothing of it,—absolutely nothing,” said Paula, in a low voice, his hands in his pockets.
“Send me home that João VI.”
“At your orders, Senhor Sebastião.”
Sebastião returned home. He went up to the parlor, and throwing his hat on the sofa,—
“Good!” he said to himself. “How, at least, appearances are saved.”
He took a few turns up and down the room, with bent head, sad and thoughtful; for that he had been able by chance to justify those excursions of Luiza’s in the eyes of the neighbors made the thought only the more cruel to him that he was not able to explain them to himself. The suspicions the neighbors had for some time past entertained he had shown to be unjust; but what of his own? He desired to prove them false, childish, unreasonable, and against his will, his common-sense, and his principles he was involving himself in greater and greater difficulties. After all, he had done his duty, and with a sorrowful gesture he said aloud, breaking the silence around him,—