"Gabrielle's beauty produced a sensation at the last ball at the Spanish embassy's," the baroness continued.
"I must entreat you not to make such a fatal assault upon my daughter's modesty," exclaimed Zinka.
"Bah!" the baroness shrugged her shoulders, "stop up your ears, Gabrielle. Produced a sensation is the correct phrase. It is remarkable--the succés that the Austrian women always have in Paris. I have a suitor for Gabrielle--the most brilliant parti in Paris."
"Stop, stop, Zoë, I beg you," said Truyn, provoked, "you make me nervous! You always forget how your French way of arranging marriages goes against the grain with us and our old-fashioned Austrian ideas. You say I have a rich husband for your daughter in just the same tone in which you say I have a purchaser for your house! And I seriously entreat you to consider that a jewel like my dear comrade yonder, may be bestowed, upon one deemed worthy of such a possession, but can never be sold."
"Ah, here is my sandwich!" exclaimed the baroness, paying no attention to his words in her satisfaction over the tea-tray. Whilst Gabrielle was occupied with making tea the visitor applied herself to the refreshments, whispering meanwhile confidentially and mysteriously to Truyn. "I thought that your new domestic relations might make you desirous to have Gabrielle mar ...."
An angry flash in Truyn's blue eyes, usually so kindly, warned her that she was on the wrong track; she lost countenance and consequently proceeded rather too precipitately in her investigations as to 'how the land lay.'
"At least my proposition is worth being taken into serious consideration," she said hastily. "Count Capriani commissioned me to ask you whether there was any prospect of his obtaining Gabrielle's hand for his only--remember, his only son."
"Count Capriani, I do not know who he is," Truyn said coldly.
"Well then, Conte Capriani," Zoë explained impatiently.
"Ah, indeed, Conte Capriani," Truyn said significantly,--"the railroad Capriani!"