"It makes no difference; it might have been three umbrellas and six straw bonnets: it is all the same. Every Parisian woman suffers from the bargain-mania, but I have never seen the disease developed to such a degree as in my wife. She buys everything she comes across, if it is only a bargain,--old iron rubbish, new plans of Paris, embroideries, antique clocks, and bottles of rock-crystal as----christening-presents for children who are not yet born!"
"À propos of presents," Thérèse observes, reflectively, "do you not think, Zino, that the chandelier of Venetian glass I bought last year would be a good wedding-present for Stella Meineck?"
"Is she betrothed, then?" Zino inquires, naturally.
"As good as," Thérèse assents.
"To whom?" Capito asks, sitting down, both hands in his trousers-pockets, and crossing his legs.
"To Arthur de Hauterive,--a brilliant match," says Thérèse.
"Cabouat de Hauterive," murmurs Zino, ironically stroking his moustache, and stretching his legs out a little farther. "A brilliant match if you choose, but rather a scaly fellow,--eh?"
"I should like to know what objection you can make to him," Thérèse asks, crossly.
Zino shrugs his shoulders up to his ears, and then straightens them again, without taking any further pains to clothe in words his opinion of Monsieur Cabouat.
"He is not a thorough gentleman," says the elder Rohritz.