“But, mother, I must first find a wife.” He spread out his fingers contemplatively on the white plush beneath him, among the gold-embroidered lilies.
“That is a woman’s work, not a man’s. It is a mother’s, and I could easily manage it. A man should find all his loves for himself, except the one he marries in the end.”
“But would you look for a consort, mother, or merely for a mule with money-bags?”
“Otto, how rudely you put things! Contact with black people has not improved you. I should look for an angel, worthy of my boy—an angel with golden wings.” She paused, and played shyly with the velvet at her wrist. “Indeed, I hope you will marry a little money,” she added, looking away. “You father expects it. And, besides, you must.”
He did not answer. “Gerard is going to,” she added, blushing over the pink-and-white tints of her delicate cheek. “He quite understands it is necessary. He is doing his best.”
“How commendable!” cried Otto, sitting up. “He deserves, indeed, that his gilt-feathered seraph should bear him to a matrimonial heaven.”
The Baroness looked placidly alarmed. “My dear,” she said, “don’t, I beg of you, go spoiling your brother. He takes a much simpler view of duty than you. You have always complicated existence, poor child. You were a steel-clanging knight, Otto, in search of ogres; he is a troubadour under Fortune’s window. And he never plays out of tune.”
And then again there was silence between them, while she drew down his head once more. But their thoughts were conversing still.
“Marrying for money,” he continued at last, and his voice was black with scorn.