"Be quiet! Go
to sleep!"
"I am frightened! I am coming into your room."
"I forbid it!"
"Then you must come in here!"
Noemi's "Will you be quiet?" sounded so resolute that the other was
silent.
Only for a moment, however; then the tearful, childish voice, that Noemi
knew so well, began again:
"Have you not slept long enough? Can you not talk now? You must have
slept three hours!"
Noemi struck a match and looked at her watch, holding which she had
previously begged for silence.
"Twenty-two minutes!" she announced. "Be quiet!"
Jeanne was still for a moment, then she uttered those little
hm!--hm!--hms!--which are always the prelude to tears in a spoilt child.
And the complaining voice went on:
"You do not love me at all! Hm! Hm! For pity's sake let us talk a
little! Hm! Hm! Hm!"
In her mother tongue, Noemi sighed:
"_Oh_! _mon Dieu_!"
With another sigh she resigned herself to the inevitable:
"Well, go ahead! But what can you say to me that you have not already
said in the last four hours?"
The thunder roared, but Jeanne no longer noticed it.
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