"'Sieur Grandissime--you know dad riz'n I--"
She slightly opened her fan, looking down upon it, and was still.
"I have no right to ask the reason," said M. Grandissime. "It is yours--not mine."
Her head went lower.
"Well, you know,"--she drooped it meditatively to one side, with her eyes on the floor,--"'tis bick-ause--'tis bick-ause I thing in a few days I'm goin' to die."
M. Grandissime said never a word. He was not alarmed.
She looked up suddenly and took a quick breath, as if to resume, but her eyes fell before his, and she said, in a tone of half-soliloquy:
"I 'ave so mudge troub' wit dad hawt."
She lifted one little hand feebly to the cardiac region, and sighed softly, with a dying languor.
M. Grandissime gave no response. A vehicle rumbled by in the street below, and passed away. At the bottom of the room, where a gilded Mars was driving into battle, a soft note told the half-hour. The lady spoke again.