“Eccellenza, you are talking to a woman now,” said Diana, calmly. “But never mind! Go on—and don’t apologise!”
Farnese’s dark olive skin flushed red.
“But I must!” he stammered, awkwardly. “I ask a thousand pardons!”
She glanced at him sideways with a laughing look.
“You are forgiven!” she said. “Women are quite hardened to the ironies and satires of your sex upon us,—and if we have any cleverness at all we are more amused by them than offended. For we know you cannot do without us! But certainly it is very odd that Dr. Dimitrius should advertise for an old woman! I never heard anything quite so funny!”
“He does not, I think, advertise for an actually old woman,” said Farnese, relieved to find that she had taken his clumsy remark so lightly. “The advertisement when I saw it mentioned a woman of mature years.”
“Oh, well, that’s a polite way of saying an old woman, isn’t it?” smiled Diana. “And—do tell me!—has he got her?”
“Why no!—not yet. Probably he will not get her at all. Even let us suppose a woman offered herself who admitted that she was ‘of mature years,’ that very fact would be sufficient proof of her incapacity.”
“Indeed!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows again. “Why?”
The Marchese smiled a superior smile.