“Bless the women! they never understand anything; they come into the office, interrupt one’s work, and oblige one to be harsh to those one loves best. And yet they pretend to be our equals.”
He continued his panegyric on women alone, for mother and child had disappeared, both crying, the mother mortally offended by the double blow—the one to the wife’s heart, the other to the mother’s. The child screamed, frightened at the cruel scene which he appeared to feel, if he did not understand.
Sobs and cries lasted some time, and were heard through the wall in the office, making a savage harmony with the bursts of impatience of the angry director of the factory.
⁂
“Do you know, dear, the Marquis of Bellavista came into our box at the theatre yesterday evening?”
“What did he want? I did not know he was in Florence.”
“Neither did I.”
“Um!”
“I thought he was still in Naples; but he told me he was staying a day or two in Florence on his way to the races at Milan, and seeing me in the box, he came up to shake hands with me.”