"The father's an Italian, I hear."
"Yes, an Italian diplomatist."
In this way the fire continued, brisk, crackling, fiercer and fiercer, until it went off like a brilliant and acrid fire-work:
"Well, I don't think the family will like that so very much!"
"You need only look at Van Naghel's face...."
"Or at the Van Saetzemas'."
"Why don't they keep her in the background?"
"Yes. What did she want to come back for at all?"
"I call it an impertinence."
"She was always intriguing as a young girl."