CATHERINE.
My dear Paul, how absurd you are about that old coat! It must be hanging in the blue closet where you left it.
PETKOFF.
My dear Catherine, I tell you I’ve looked there. Am I to believe my own eyes or not? (Catherine quietly rises and presses the button of the electric bell by the fireplace.) What are you shewing off that bell for? (She looks at him majestically, and silently resumes her chair and her needlework.) My dear: if you think the obstinacy of your sex can make a coat out of two old dressing gowns of Raina’s, your waterproof, and my mackintosh, you’re mistaken. That’s exactly what the blue closet contains at present. (Nicola presents himself.)
CATHERINE.
(unmoved by Petkoff’s sally). Nicola: go to the blue closet and bring your master’s old coat here—the braided one he usually wears in the house.
NICOLA.
Yes, madam. (Nicola goes out.)
PETKOFF.
Catherine.
CATHERINE.
Yes, Paul?
PETKOFF.
I bet you any piece of jewellery you like to order from Sofia against a week’s housekeeping money, that the coat isn’t there.
CATHERINE.
Done, Paul.
PETKOFF.
(excited by the prospect of a gamble). Come: here’s an opportunity for some sport. Who’ll bet on it? Bluntschli: I’ll give you six to one.
BLUNTSCHLI.
(imperturbably). It would be robbing you, Major. Madame is sure to be right. (Without looking up, he passes another batch of papers to Sergius.)