Léonore. What could he be saying? It appeared incredible, even to-night,
that he should really be saying that every departing guest must kiss
Léonore's back and swear that it was the most beautiful back in Brazil.

He looked along the avenue of revellers that had turned grinning to see
how his English stiffness would meet the occasion, and saw poor Léonore.
She was sitting on the table, one hand holding her pink wrapper to her
breast and the other patting back a yawn, and her nightdress was pulled
down to her waist so that her back was bare. Such a broad, honest back
it was, for she was the thick type of Frenchwoman, and might have stood
as a model for Millet's "Angelus." She looked over her shoulder and
smiled at him benignantly, perplexedly, and he saw that she was unhappy.
They had fetched her down from her warm bed, whither doubtless she had
gone with hopes of having a good night's rest for once, since Hermes was
giving a stag-dinner. They had not even given her time to wipe off all
the cold cream, some of which lay in an ooze round her jaw and temples,
or to take the curl-papers out of her hair, which still sported some
white snippets of the _Jornal de Commercio_. She bore no malice, the
good soul was saying to herself, but once a woman is in her bed she
likes to stay there: still, men are men, and mad, so what can one
expect?

He would not treat her lightly, nor spoil his sense of dedication to one
woman. He flicked the revolver out of Pessôa's hand and flung it through
the nearest window. The thick glass took a little time to fall.

"My friends will wait on you in the morning," Pessôa had spouted, and he
had said the appropriate courteous things, and gone up to Léonore, and
kissed her hand and said something chaffing in her ear, at which she
smiled sleepily, and said in English, "Go on, you bad man!" She spoke so