“We’ll see,” I muttered. My suspicions were suddenly roused by a look in her little squirrel face.
“You’ve been talking to Claire,” I said.
“Well, what if I have?”
“She sent you.”
“Yes, she did; but I was coming, anyway.”
“I don’t believe you. You hate my being unhappy, you were worried, but you’d have avoided coming if you could. The fact that we’ve always been friends and that you can’t help it is a nuisance to you. Well, tell me, what is Claire’s point of view?”
“She thinks in some measure that it’s your fault. She says Fifi has behaved very badly, but that if you’d been clever he wouldn’t have done anything sensational, anything to make a scandal.”
“I see.”
“She’s very unhappy about it all. She says it’s making her mother ill. She says that if it were not for her mother it would not matter so much, but that if you divorce Philibert it will kill her.”
“Why doesn’t Claire come herself and tell me all this?”