“No,” said the counsellor, gravely, “I cannot believe that our Jorge speaks seriously. He is too intelligent to hold opinions so—so—” He could not find the adjective he wished. Julião handed him a toothpick-holder—a monkey sheltering himself under an umbrella—bristling with toothpicks. He took one, and continued, “So—so—barbarous.”
“But you deceive yourself, Senhor Counsellor,” protested Jorge. “Those are my real sentiments; in the full understanding that if the question, instead of being of a play, were one of real life, and Ernesto were to come to me and say, ‘I have found my wife—’”
“Oh, Jorge!” interrupted those nearest him, in accents of reproach.
“Well, if he were to come and say this to me, I should answer in the same way. I give you my word of honor,” he added, with an energetic gesture, “that I should say to him, ‘Kill her!’”
Every one protested against this. They called him a tiger, an Othello, a Bluebeard. Jorge said nothing; he only smiled tranquilly.
Luiza worked on at her embroidery in silence. The light of the lamp, softened by the shade, gave her hair a pale-yellow tint, and glanced off her skin, white as polished marble.
“And you,” Donna Felicidade asked her,—“what do you think of all this?”
Luiza raised her beautiful countenance, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.
“The Senhora Donna Luiza,” said the counsellor, “will say proudly what all true matrons would say: ‘The impurities of the world do not touch even the hem of my garment.’”
“Good-evening to every one,” said a deep bass voice in the doorway.