Leopoldina expressed her astonishment. A man who had so many friends, and who could lead so agreeable a life, to leave Lisbon! “Am I not right?” she said, turning to Luiza in order to draw her out of her embarrassed silence.
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Luiza.
She was seated on the edge of a chair, filled with terror, and longing to fly. The persistent gaze of Castro from behind his eye-glasses annoyed her.
Leopoldina leaned back on the sofa, and with an accusing gesture of the finger,—
“Ah, there are petticoats at the bottom of this journey to France,” she said.
He denied it faintly and with a fatuous smile. Leopoldina, to flatter him, called him a rake. Pleased and smiling, he answered, stroking his mustache, “Calumnies, calumnies.”
Leopoldina, turning to Luiza, said,—
“He has bought a splendid villa in Bordeaux,—a palace.” “A hut, a hut.”
“And he is going to give magnificent entertainments.”
“Modest teas, modest teas,” he answered, delighted. And both women laughed with simulated gayety. Castro bent towards Luiza, saying,—