"Yes."
"And he dares to ask my daughter's hand for his son?"
Perfect silence reigned for a moment. Gabrielle's little nose expressed intense disdain.
"Zoë, you are insane," Truyn said at last, very contemptuously. "This is not, I believe, the first of April."
"I cannot understand your irritation," the baroness rejoined, with the bravado that is the result of great embarrassment. "You are always proclaiming yourself a Liberal with no prejudices!"
Truyn coloured slightly. He had grown more decided than he had been a few years before, and his shirt collars were perhaps a little higher and stiffer. His whole bearing expressed the dignified content that distinguishes the man of conservative views of life. He gently twitched his high collar as he began: "I am a Liberal--at least I fancy that I am. If my daughter had set her heart upon marrying a man her inferior as regards birth and family, I should certainly consent to her doing so, provided the man were one whose character and attainments atoned for his low origin."
Zinka smiled sceptically with a scarcely perceptible shrug. Truyn's colour deepened. "I do not deny," he admitted, "that it would be very hard for me, but all the same I should consent and should do all that I could to assist such a son-in-law to attain a position worthy of my daughter--that is suitable to her mode of life."
"Do not be afraid, papa. I have not the slightest desire to fall in love with a deputy on the extreme Left," Gabrielle observed.
"In young Capriani's case there would be no need for you to trouble yourself about your son-in-law's position," said the baroness loftily. "Sa position est toute faite. All Paris was at the ball the night before last in the Capriani Hôtel--all the rois en exil appeared there, and even some Siberian magnates, and all--that is very many--of the Austrians at present in Paris."
"You know just as well as I do why all these magnates appeared at Capriani's," Truyn rejoined angrily. "But indeed I care nothing for this speculator's position--the man himself is odious--a common parvenu with a boor of a son."