“Well, now, so long as his lordship likes to treat me and my family as kind of belonging to a different sphere, I'm well enough content. I make no pretensions, Count, to be better than what I am.”
“I also, Mr. Gallosh, endeavor to affect a similar modesty. It's rather becoming, I think, to a fine-looking man.”
“It's becoming to any kind of man that he should know his place. But I was saying, I'd have been content if his lordship had been distant and polite and that kind of thing. But was he? You know yourself, Count, how he's behaved!”
“Perfectly politely, I trust.”
“But he's not been what you'd call distant, Count Bunker. In fac', the long and the short of it is just this—what's his intentions towards my Eva?”
“Is it Mrs. Gallosh who desires this information?”
“It is. And myself too; oh, I'm not behindhand where the reputation of my daughters is concerned!”
“Mrs. G. has screwed him up to this,” said the Count to himself. Aloud, he asked with his blandest air—
“Was not Lord Tulliwuddle available himself?”
“No; he's gone out.”