"Her father was Chancellor," adds her mother, "and her husband held some very high place at court, I forget what."
"Held? Is he disgraced, then, or dead?"
"Oh, dead: that is what is so nice for her," says Dodo.
"Heartless Dodo!" says Brandolin. "Then if I marry you four years hence I must kill myself to become endeared to you?"
"I should pity you indeed if you were to marry Dodo," says Dodo's mother. "She has not a grain of any human feeling, except for her dog."
Dodo laughs. She likes to be called heartless; she thinks it is chic and grown-up; she will weep over a lame puppy, a beaten horse, a dead bird, but she is "hard as nails to humans," as her brother Boom phrases it.
"Somebody will reign some day where the Skye reigns now over Dodo's soul. Happy somebody!" says Brandolin. "I shall be too old to be that somebody. Besides, Dodo will demand from fate an Adonis and a Cr[oe]sus in one!"
Dodo smiles, showing her pretty white teeth; she likes the banter and the flirtation with some of her father's friends. She feels quite old; in four years' time her mother will present her, and she means to marry directly after that.
"When does this Russian goddess who drops ponies and turquoises out of the clouds arrive here?" asks Brandolin, as he picks up his racquet to resume the game.
"She won't be here for three days," says Lady Usk.