“I forbid it!”
“Then you must come in here!”
Noemi’s “Will you be quiet?” sounded so resolute that the other was silent.
Only for a moment, however; then the tearful, childish voice, that Noemi knew so well, began again:
“Have you not slept long enough? Can you not talk now? You must have slept three hours!”
Noemi struck a match and looked at her watch, holding which she had previously begged for silence.
“Twenty-two minutes!” she announced. “Be quiet!”
Jeanne was still for a moment, then she uttered those little hm!—hm!—hms!—which are always the prelude to tears in a spoilt child. And the complaining voice went on:
“You do not love me at all! Hm! Hm! For pity’s sake let us talk a little! Hm! Hm! Hm!”
In her mother tongue, Noemi sighed: