“What? Am I so silly and so homely that I shall never make a rich marriage unless with an old man?”
“Then you admit that you will not marry any one but a rich man?”
“If I should say yes, what would you think of me?”
“I should not think ill of you.”
“I know; I should be doing just as so many others do; and you would not think well of me either.”
This rather delicate discussion was resumed at the third pause of the quartette to which our two young friends belonged. Margaret seemed to want to test Cristiano’s sincerity.
“Confess, now,” she said, “that you despise girls who marry for riches; like Olga, for instance, to whom the baron looks so handsome through the facets of the great diamonds that she dreams about.”
“I despise nothing,” replied the adventurer; “I am naturally tolerant, or else the facets of what virtue I have are dulled by friction with the world. I am enthusiastic for what is superior to the average; and I feel a philosophical indifference to whatever is adapted to the vulgar generality of people.”
“Enthusiastic, do you say? Is not enthusiasm a high price to pay for a thing so natural as disinterestedness? I shall not demand so much of you, Monsieur Goefle; I shall only ask your esteem. I hope you will believe that if I were free to choose, I would consult my heart alone, and not my interest. Even if I could never have any more lace to my sleeves, or satin bows to my dress—even if I could never dance any more in the light of a thousand candles, to the sound of thirty violins, hautboys, and double-basses—I feel that I am capable of making even so immense a sacrifice as that, for the sake of preserving my freedom of opinion and the approbation of my conscience.”
Margaret spoke with enthusiasm. Excited by the dancing, she said just what was in her heart: all the generosity and romance of her nature shone in her brilliant eyes; there was a sort of electrical life and inspiration in her radiant smile; in her attitude, like that of a bird eager to dart upwards again to the clouds; in her lovely fair hair, whose long curls wreathed over her lily-white shoulders as if they were alive; in the heart-felt tone of her voice—in short, in the whole of her charming little person. Cristiano was altogether dazzled, and, without being entirely conscious of what he was saying, he asked Margaret, as if he were dreaming, this strange question: