The bell rang. Luiza, trembling and very pale, looked around her on all sides with wide-open eyes, as if in search of an idea, a resolution, a corner in which to hide herself. They could hear Castro’s step on the matting in the parlor close beside them. Leopoldina said to her friend in a low voice, and very slowly, as if she wished to engrave her words one by one upon her mind,—
“Remember that within an hour you may be safe, free, and happy, with your letters in your pocket.”
Luiza stood up with quick decision; she went to the dressing-table to powder her face and smooth her hair, and then followed Leopoldina into the parlor.
On seeing Luiza, Castro looked surprised. Standing with his small feet close together, he bent his round head, on which the hair was beginning to turn gray. On his rounded paunch, which his short legs made appear still more prominent, a locket, depending from his watch-chain, rested conspicuously. He carried in his hand a little cane with a silver knob representing a Venus wreathing her arms. His complexion was of a uniform red; his heavy mustache terminated in points sharpened by pomade, à la Napoleon; his gold eye-glasses gave him an air of importance, in keeping with his character as a banker and a friend of order, and he seemed as satisfied with life as a contented sparrow.
So it was necessary to send for him in order to catch a glimpse of him, began Leopoldina. Then she presented Luiza as her intimate friend, the companion of her school-days, and said,—
“But why have you not been to see me?”
Castro leaned back in a rocking-chair, and tapping his boot with his cane, gave as an excuse the preparations for his journey.
“Then it is true that you are going to leave us?” Castro bowed. “To-morrow, in the ‘Orinoco,’” he answered.
“This time, then, the newspapers have not lied. And how long will you be away?”
“Per omnia saccula sacculorum.”