As though to verify Matilde's assertion, she bent a little, raised the
cup, and tasted the liquid. It was still too hot to drink, and she
stirred it again on her knee. She noticed that although it had been
sweet enough to her taste, there was a lump of sugar, not yet dissolved,
still in the cup: she never took but one piece, and her aunt had
evidently put in two.
Still holding the cup on her knee, where Matilde could not possibly see
it, she quietly fished the superfluous piece of sugar out with her
teaspoon, and bending down again she deposited it in the saucer from
which the cat was lapping the last drops of cream. She noticed that it
was only dissolved at the corners, but she had observed before that one
sometimes finds a lump of sugar which remains hard a long time. The cat
would eat it, for it liked sugar, as some cats do.
Then she filled the cat's saucer again. By that time what she had was
cooler, and she drank some of it.
"It is certainly very good tea," she said thoughtfully. "I think you
probably make it better than I do."
As she drank again, Gregorio's unearthly laugh cracked and jarred in the
room. But neither he nor his wife had seen what Veronica had done. They
were staring hard at each other, and for the second time Matilde felt
that her brow was moist.
CHAPTER XV.
The Maltese cat died before six o'clock. The poor creature suffered
horribly, and Elettra carried it off to her room that Veronica might not
see its agony.
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