From a neighbouring church a clock struck five.
Miss Sinquier sighed; she had not closed her eyes the whole night through.
“One needs a blind,” she mused, “and a pane——.” She looked about her for something to throw.
Cinquecento, Italian things—a chest, a crucifix, a huge guitar, a grim, carved catafalque all purple sticks and violet legs (Juliet’s) crowded the floor.
“A mess of glass ... and cut my feet ...;” she murmured, gathering about her a négligé of oxydized knitted stuff and sauntering out towards the footlights in quest of air.
Notwithstanding the thermometer, she could hear Miss May Mant breathing nasally from behind her door.
The stage was almost dark.
“Verona,” set in autumn trees, looked fast asleep. Here and there a campanile shot up, in high relief, backed by a scenic hill, or an umbrella-pine. On a column in the “Market Place” crouched a brazen lion.
An acrobatic impulse took her at the sight of it.
“Sono pazza per te