The Baroness was quite serious in her design. A little Athenian might be an impossible match for a young Austrian aristocrat, with the blood of the Crusaders, the Hapsburgs, and heaven knows of what other deeply azure sources, running through his veins;—but a common Greek merchant from Trieste, now, an amiable enough person in florid attire, but not of her world, though gracefully patronised by her! It would be a very proper match, and one which she was resolved to further. The girl was pretty—extremely pretty and young. She wanted polish, and a few months of Agiropoulos’ irresistible society would be sure to accomplish much in that way.
“Decidedly, M. Agiropoulos, I am determined to marry you. You must range yourself. You are now, I suppose, just thirty?”
“Oh, madame, grace I beseech you! Twenty-six. But you see the disastrous results of follies and the harassing cares your cruel sex imposes on sensitive young men,” said Agiropoulos, with his fatuous smile.
“Then it is of greater necessity that you should settle down at once, and devote yourself to the whims of a wife.”
“I am only eager for the day. I have been well disposed towards Mademoiselle Veritassi, but she, capricious angel, will not have me.”
The baroness felt inclined to box the fellow’s ear, but only smiled.
A few days later this airy individual left a basket of flowers for the desposyné Andromache Karapolos.