"Ah yes," he murmured, "but there is an end even to sorrow.... To-day my friend Stillman's sorrow ended ... his wife is dead."
CHAPTER IX
It was decided that Claire and Danilo were to be married some time in August. Danilo was for rushing off for a license at once, but Claire pleaded the usual feminine lack of suitable apparel. Upon the question of finances in the mean time, Danilo was extraordinarily frank:
"I might as well give up my lodgings in that wretched Third Street hotel and come here. Cannot you shoo Miss Proll into another corner and let me have the hall bedroom?"
Claire was on the point of reflecting, but Danilo finished, simply:
"You must live for the next three months, you must remember."
And so the thing was decided.
Mrs. Robson was a bit disturbed at this arrangement. The excitement of Claire's prospects had revived in her all her old sense of social expediency.... She wasn't quite sure that people did such things. She could not remember one instance where anybody of her acquaintance had permitted their daughter's fiancé to share the same roof, and she was emphatic in her disapproval of allowing Danilo to foot the bills. But Claire reminded her that Danilo came of different stock and had other standards. At this, Mrs. Robson surrendered, but Claire could see that her mother's old distrust for things "foreign" was ready to flare up at the first provocation.
Miss Proll, established in a corner of the living-room, pleaded for the honor of preparing the trousseau. Claire consented, as she said, with a rueful laugh: