"Wouldn't your eyes pop out if the handsomest, the richest, the bravest man in New Orleans deliberately took his life in his hands to see you and be near you?"
"But he says it was important business which brought him." Vittoria smiled guiltily.
"Tell that to your granny! You don't know men as I do. Have you really seen him? I'm not dreaming?"
"I have seen him, with these very eyes, and if you were not such a lazy little pig you'd have seen him, too. Shall you take your breakfast in your room, as usual?" Vittoria's eyes twinkled.
"Don't tease me!" Miss Warren exclaimed, with a furious blush. "I—I love to tease other people, but I can't stand it myself. Breakfast in my room, indeed! But of course I shall treat him with freezing politeness."
"Why should you pretend to be offended?"
"Don't you understand? This is bound to cause gossip. Why, the idea of
Norvin Blake, the handsomest, the richest—"
"Yes, yes."
"The idea of his getting himself quarantined in the same house with me, and our being here together for days—maybe for months! Why, it will create the loveliest scandal. I'll never dare hold up my head again in public, never. You see how it must make me feel. I'm compromised." Myra Nell undertook to show horror in her features, but burst into a gale of laughter.
"Do you care for him very much?"