Perhaps that is why I did pay some attention to the lady I had seen at the comendador’s house on the previous evening. She was a strong, dark-haired creature, between twenty-eight and thirty, and somberly dressed; she arrived at ten o’clock, accompanied by an old aunt. Since it was the first time she had been there—it was my third—she was greeted with rather more ceremony than the other guests. I asked someone if she was a widow.

“No, she’s married.”

“Who to?”

“The owner of a large estate in Rio Grande do Sul.”

“Name?”

“Him? He’s Fonseca, and she’s Maria Cora.”

“Didn’t her husband come with her?”

“No, he’s in Rio Grande.”

That was all I could glean; but what intrigued me most were her physical attractions, the very opposite of what romantic poets and seraphic artists would dream of. I spoke to her for a few minutes about matters of no importance, but long enough to hear her very singsong voice, and to learn that she had republican leanings. I didn’t like to admit that I had no leanings at all, and so mumbled something suitably vague about the future of the country. When she spoke, she had a way of moistening her lips with her tongue; whether this was intentional, I don’t know, but it was both charming and piquant. Seen from close up, her features were less perfect than they had seemed at a distance, but they were also more hers, more original.

Chapter II

In the morning, I found that my watch had stopped. When I reached town, I walked down Rua do Ouvidor as far as Rua da Quitanda, and, as I was about to turn right to go to my lawyer’s office, I glanced at my watch, forgetting that it had stopped.

“Oh, what a bore!” I cried.

Fortunately, to the left, on Rua da Quitanda, between Rua do Ouvidor and Rua do Rosário, was the shop where I had bought that watch, and by whose clock I always set my own. Instead of going in one direction, I went in the other. It was only half an hour out of my way; I wound my watch, set it to the right time, exchanged a few words with the clerk at the counter, and, as I was leaving, I saw, standing outside a novelty shop opposite, the somberly dressed lady I had met at the comendador’s house. I greeted her, and she returned my greeting somewhat hesitantly, as if she did not immediately recognize me, and then she continued on up Rua da Quitanda, still on the other side of the road.