"You don't understand me, perhaps," she went on. "I mean, have you ever seen—here in Paris, for instance—any particular man whom it has seemed to you you might—er—love? Now—there is De Boussac—"
"Ah!"
"Wait a moment, my dear. Let me finish. I'll not conceal from you that it has been a dear wish of mine to see you married to him. I've known him since he was a baby. He's titled, rich, very talented, and more than moderately good-looking. His position is irreproachable, and his family goes straight back indefinitely."
She stopped nervously. The speech which she had mentally prepared, descriptive of De Boussac's desirability, had been some ten times this length. In some fashion, Margery's eyes had shorn it of verbiage, and reduced it, as it were, to its lowest terms.
"But, my dear mother, this is the first inkling I've had of any such idea. I can't imagine that Monsieur de Boussac has ever breathed a word on the subject. Don't you think the first mention should come from him? I've no reason to suppose that he cares a straw for me."
"He does—I know he does," broke in Madame Palffy eagerly. "You're quite wrong in supposing he's never spoken of it. Remember, these things are managed differently over here. You have the American idea. In Paris one speaks first to the girl's parents."
Margery shrugged her shoulders. A kind of instinct told her that she must ask no questions if she would be told no lies.
"And there's another objection," she said. "I don't want to marry him. He may have money, but money isn't everything. Indeed, it's entered very near the foot of my list of the things to be desired in life. As to position, my own is sufficiently good to make his immaterial. We go back indefinitely ourselves, you know; although, to be sure, I've found some things in the family records which seemed to suggest that it might have been better not to have gone back so far. Last, but very far from least, I don't love him, and, in view of the fact that, if he really had the slightest feeling for me, I should, in all probability, have known of it long ago, I must say, my dear mother, that your suggestion strikes me as having all the elements of a screaming farce."
At this point Madame Palffy applied a minute handkerchief to her eyes, and began to weep softly.