"No money," the marchesa answered, curtly.
"And the young baroness?"
"No money," la Belloni repeated.
"So there's no one except the stocking-merchant?" asked the prince, wearily.
La Belloni became cross, but Cornélie and Duco could not understand the sentences which she rattled out through the boom-booming music. Then, during a lull, they heard the marchesa say:
"She is very pretty. She has tons and tons of money. She could have gone to a first-class hotel but preferred to come here because, as a young girl travelling by herself, she was recommended to me and finds it pleasanter here. She has the big sitting-room to herself and pays fifty lire a day for her two rooms. She does not care about money. She pays three times as much as the others for her wood; and I also charge her for the wine."
"She sells stockings," muttered the prince, obstinately.
"Nonsense!" said the marchesa. "Remember that there's nobody at the moment. Last winter we had rich English titled people with a daughter, but you thought her too tall. You're always discovering some objection. You mustn't be so difficult."
"I think those two little Dutch dolls attractive."
"They have no money. You're always thinking what you have no business to think."