“May, will you listen?”
“I can see you are scolding me, but I can’t hear a word you say, and I won’t listen. Oh, I do wish you were married to him instead of me.”
“I wish to heaven I were!” cried Claire solemnly.
“What?” cried May, the stopping of whose ears seemed now to be very ineffective. “You wish you were married to the little mean-spirited, insignificant wretch?”
“Yes,” said Claire excitedly, “for then you would be free.”
“What do you mean by that, Claire?”
“Did you not tell me that Louis Gravani was dead?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Why did you tell me that?”
“Because he went to Rome or Florence—I am not sure which—and caught a fever and died.”