Sebastião said he did not know.
“I have seen that face before. Let me try to think—” and he passed his hand over his forehead. “I have seen him somewhere. He belongs to Lisbon!” After a moment’s silence he resumed, “And what is there new, Sebastião?”
Sebastião had heard nothing new.
“Nor I either; it is all nothing but lies! Good-by.”
CHAPTER VI.
ON TRIAL.
AT about four in the afternoon Sebastião went again to Luiza’s. He found the same gentleman with her as before. He went away thoughtful, without seeing her. No doubt the visitor had come on some business of Jorge’s; for Sebastião could not comprehend that Luiza should think, speak, or feel, except with reference to the interests of the household, and with Jorge’s happiness in view. But the business must be a serious one to be the occasion of so many visits. Could anything of importance affect their interests and he not know of it? This seemed to him a piece of ingratitude on their part, and a diminution of their friendship for him.
Aunt Joanna noticed that something was the matter with him.
“A headache,” he said, in answer to her inquiries. That night he slept badly. Next day he learned that the gentleman was her Cousin Bazilio,—Bazilio de Brito. His uncertainty was at an end, but a more definite fear took possession of him.
Sebastião did not know Bazilio personally, but he knew the story of his youthful days. It is true that in this there was neither any exceptional scandal nor any piquant history. Bazilio had been simply a viveur, and as such had passed methodically through all the traditional episodes of Lisbon life,—parties of monte lasting till daylight, in the companionship of the wealthy bourgeois of Alemtejo; a carriage dashed to pieces on a Saturday at the bull-fights; dinners with some Lola or Carmen, followed by a lobster salad; a bull caught by the horns, applauses in the circus of Salvaterra or in Alhandra; nights spent in the taverns with guitar-players, eating codfish and drinking Collares; and a shower of flour eggs, thrown in the face of one of the municipal authorities during the Carnival. The only women who appeared in this story, with the exception of the Lolas and the Carmens, were la Pistelli, a German dancer with the legs of an athlete, and the little Countess of Alvini, a feather-head, and a great Amazon, who had separated from her husband after having given him a beating, and who once dressed in male attire to drive a coach from Rocio to Dá Fundo. All this was enough to make Sebastião regard him as a rake, as one who had already gone to destruction. He had heard that he was obliged to fly to Brazil from his creditors, and that he became rich by chance through a speculation in Paraguay; that not even when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, in Bahia, would he devote himself persistently to work; and he took it for granted that the possession of a fortune would be the means of developing his vices. And this man came every day to see Luiza, staying with her for hours, accompanying her to the Passeio, with what purpose it was only too evident.
He was going down the street, oppressed by the weight of these thoughts, when he heard a hoarse voice saying in respectful tones,—