“Is he a bachelor?”

“No! His wife left him.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Older than me.”

Hilda became more angry at every reply, angry as her mother used to be, in a kind of paroxysm. But still she hid it.

“I would give up tonight’s escapade if I were you,” she advised calmly.

“I can’t! I must stay with him tonight, or I can’t go to Venice at all. I just can’t.”