"Why not? You are finally, and I for the time, respectable. Why not, while my money lasts?"
"I have money of yours."
"You have more than money of mine."
He looked me in the face and held out his hand. I grasped it firmly.
"Are you making a fool of this Baroness?" I asked.
"Don't be afraid. She's making one of me. She is very happy and content. I am born to make women happy."
I laughed again. He was whimsically resigned to his temperament, but the mischief had not touched his brain. Then the Baroness' hold on him was not like Coralie Mansoni's; he would fight no duel for her. He would only make a fool of the greatest man in Forstadt. That feat was always so easy to him.
"Well," he said, "I must return to my misery."
"And I to my happiness," said I. "But you'll come to Artenberg?"
"It's Princess Heinrich's house," he objected with a smile.