“Palpitations, Senhora, and an oppression on the chest. I passed a bad night.”
Her countenance was, in truth, livid; the expression of her eyes was deathlike, and her body was bent with pain. She was attired in a well-worn black merino dress.
“Very well, go,” said Luiza; “but first, put everything in order. And do not stay long, do you hear?” Juliana went back to the kitchen. This was a spacious apartment, situated at the back of the house, on the second story, and lighted by two bay-windows. The floor before the fireplace was paved with brick.
“She says that I may go, Senhora Joanna,” said Juliana to the cook. “I am going to dress. The senhora is just finishing her toilet to go out.”
The cook, rejoiced at this news, began to sing; then she applied herself to the task of shaking a well-worn carpet out of the window, during which operation she did not remove her eyes from a little yellow house opposite, with a large door. This was the workshop of Uncle João Galho, in which her sweetheart, Pedro, worked. Poor Joanna was in love with him. He was a tall, pale young man, of a sickly appearance. Joanna was a native of Avintes, in Minho, and the daughter of peasants, and this thin and anæmic type, peculiar to Lisbon, had captivated her fancy and kindled a devouring flame in her heart. As she could not go out during the week, she would let him into the house by the back door, when she was alone; to which end she hung out on the balcony, as a signal, the old carpet, in whose threadbare texture could still be distinguished the shape of the stag’s horns that had formed part of its original pattern.
Joanna was a robust girl, broad of chest and large of hip. Her hair, soaked in oil of sweet almonds, shone like jet. She was not very intelligent, but to make up for this she was obstinate, and that to an extreme degree. Her thick eyebrows made her eyes, that at this moment glowed with eagerness, appear still blacker than they really were.
“Ah,” said Juliana, looking askance at her, and giving a little dry cough, “the Senhora Joanna has hung out the signal.”
The cook turned red.
“What harm is there in that?” Juliana went on. “I wish I were in your place. You are perfectly right.”
Juliana was well aware of the cook’s love-affair; but she had need of Joanna, for the latter gave her broths to strengthen her in her attacks of debility, or cooked her a beefsteak unknown to the senhora, if she chanced to feel herself worse than usual. Juliana had a horrible dread of becoming debilitated, and required something to strengthen her at every hour of the day. Her prudery as an old maid made her disapprove of this love-affair; but seeing that such a course provided an unlimited supply of dainties for her epicurean appetite, she forced herself to tolerate it.