When Federigo came home he flung his hat away angrily on to a chair, and drank down at a gulp a glass of rum that was standing on the table.  He no longer wore the smart cloak he had on when he went out.

“I have gambled away all your money!” he cried, in English, to Salve, as if careless of further reticence, and made some remark then with an unpleasant laugh to his sister, who had evidently by her expression perceived at once how matters stood.

“There’s my last piastre for you,” said Salve, throwing it over to him.  “Try your luck with it.”

“He is successful in love,” said Paolina, tearfully, and with a naive affectation of superstition—­“he is engaged.”

When her brother, who was balancing the piastre on his forefinger, laughingly translated what she had said, Salve replied snappishly, with an impatient glance at the senorita—­

“I am not engaged, and never shall be.”

“Unsuccessful in love!” she broke out, gleefully; “and the last piastre!  To-morrow we shall win a hundred, two hundred, Federigo!”

It was clearly the conviction of her heart; and she seized a mandolin and began to dance to her own accompaniment, her eyes resting as she did so upon Salve with a peculiar expression.

“Quick, Federigo!—­why not this evening?” she cried, breaking off suddenly with a laugh, and throwing the mandolin from her on to the sofa.  “To-morrow his luck may be gone.”

She seized her brother’s hat, crushed it down upon his head, and pushed him eagerly out of the door, going with him herself to open the wicket.

She came back then to Salve, and as they sat tete-a-tete in the lamplit room with doors and windows thrown wide open, the moonlight gleaming on the dark trees outside, and the night air perfumed with the scent of flowers, she endeavoured to ingratiate herself with him by pouring out his rum-and-water and by rolling his cigarettes, an art in which it appeared from her laughter and gestures that she thought him awkward.  She was in a state of feverish excitement, and kept darting off to the wicket and back again.

Salve sat and smoked, and sipped his glass unconcernedly, whilst she rocked herself backwards and forwards in a rocking-chair, with her head thrown back, and her eyes steadily fixed upon him.  He heard a sigh, and she said in a low, ingratiating tone—­

“I am afraid Federigo is unlucky.”

Salve was not so stupid as not to comprehend her meaning.  He was quite aware that she was handsome as she sat there with her hand on her knee, and her well-formed foot gracefully brought into view; but his feeling was exclusively one of indignation that such a common Brazilian baggage should presume to bring herself into comparison with Elizabeth.  He flung away his cigar impatiently, and went down into the garden, without attempting to conceal his aversion.  He hated all women since the one he had fixed his heart on had disappointed him, and he strode backwards and forwards now in more than usual indignation against the sex.