“I felt greatly relieved when those dreadful men had gone.”
“What, the Italian professors? Pooh! what a child you are. I did not mind.”
Lydia gazed at her with a feeling of shrinking wonder, and there was something almost fierce in the beautiful eyes, as Katrine sat there by one of the tables of the ill-lit drawing-room, the two pairs of wax candles in old-fashioned silver sticks seeming to emit but a feeble light, and but for the warm glow of the fire, the great room would have been sombre in the extreme.
“What time is it, Lydia? There, don’t start like that. What a kitten you are.”
“You spoke so suddenly, dear. It is half-past ten.”
“Only half-past ten. Nearly an hour and a half before the play begins. I wish we had kept the tea things.”
“Pray don’t speak so lightly, Katrine.”
“I can’t help it. It is so absurd for the old man to have left instructions for all this meretricious romance to surround his end. As for old Girtle, he seems to delight in it, and goes about the house rubbing his hands like an undertaker.”
“Katrine!”
“Well, he does. Will read at half-past eleven at night on the tenth day after the old man’s death. It is absurd. Ah, well, I suppose a millionaire has a right to be eccentric, if he likes.”