"That was because you did not take off your hat," I said.
"It is my way," answered the prince; "and I do the same to the queen."
"Ca se peut," said I, "mais, moi, je prétends que vous ne le ferez pas ici: ainsi votre seigneurie aura la bonté, ou, d'oter votre chapeau, ou de vous en aller toute suite."
"Je prendrai la dernière partie," answered the prince, putting on his great coat and retiring.
"You have been too severe, Harriette," said Fanny, after Prince Esterhazy had taken his departure.
"I would not have been so to a poor man; but really, I have no idea of having one's house mistaken for a cabaret by a nasty coarse German, who, with all his impudence, is, as I am informed, the meanest man alive; besides he always stands with his back to the fire, without paying the least attention when the ladies shiver and shake and vow and declare they are dying with cold!"
Fanny told me, calling another subject, that Julia had not only surmounted her reluctance to Napier, but had become almost as fond of him as she had been of Sir Harry Mildmay; and that was the reason why she refused to join us at Brighton.
I inquired whether he seemed disposed to behave well to Julia and her family.
"Oh, he is horribly stingy," answered Fanny, "and Julia is obliged to affect coldness and refuse him the slightest favour, till he brings her money; otherwise she would get nothing out of him. Yet he seems to be passionately fond of her, and writes sonnets on her beauty, styling her, at forty, although the mother of nine children, 'his beautiful maid.'"