VI
"Who was it said of some one that he dearly loved a lord?" Maria Dolores, her chin in the air, asked of Frau Brandt.
"I do not know," Frau Brandt replied, knitting.
"Well, at least, you know whether it would be possible for a man and wife to live luxuriously on sixpence a week. Would it?" pursued her tease.
"You are well aware that it would not," said Frau Brandt.
"How about six hundred pounds a year?"
"Six hundred pounds—?" Frau Brandt computed. "That would be six thousand florins, no? It would depend upon their station in the world."
"Well, suppose their station were about my station—and my lord's?"
"You," said Frau Brandt, with a chuckle of contentment, swaying her white-bonneted head. "You would need twice that for your dress alone."