V
Maria Dolores tripped into Frau Brandt's sitting-room, merrily singing a snatch of song.
"Gardez vous d'être sévère
Quand on vous park d'amour,"
she carolled. Then she stopped singing, and blithely laughed.
Frau Brandt raised her good brown face from her knitting, and her good brown eyes looked anxiously upwards, slantwise over her tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.
"What is the matter now?" she asked. "What has happened to vex you now?"
"To vex me!" cried Maria Dolores, in apparent astonishment. "Wasn't I singing aloud from sheer exuberance of high spirits?"
"No," said Frau Brandt, with a very positive shake of her white-capped head. "You were singing to conceal your low spirits. What has happened?"
"Ah, well, then, if you know so much and must know all," said Maria Dolores, "I've just proposed to the man I'm in love with, and been sent about my business."
"What do you mean?" asked Frau Brandt, phlegmatic. "What nonsense is this?"