"It's as if they meant me to marry Toté," I ended. Toté was the pet name by which we called her own eight-year-old daughter.
The Countess broke her wilful silence, but did not change the direction of her eyes.
"If Toté were of the proper station," she said ironically, "she'd be just right for you by the time you're both grown up."
"And you'd be mother-in-law?"
"I should be too old to plague you. I should just sit in my corner in the sun."
"The sun is always in your corner."
"Don't be so complimentary," she said with a sudden twitching of her lips. "I shall have to stand up and curtsey, and I don't want to. Besides, you oughtn't to know how to say things like that, ought you, Cæsar?"
Cæsar was my—shall I say pet-name?—used when we were alone or with Count Max, only in a playful satire.
A silence followed for some time. At last she glanced toward me.
"Not gone yet?" said she, raising her brows. "What will the Princess say?"