"Was she ever talked about?" asks Mr. Wootton, searching the book-shelves.
"What charming woman is not?" returns Litroff, gallantly.
"My dear count," replies Mr. Wootton, with grave rebuke, "we have thousands of noble wives and mothers in England before whom Satan himself would be obliged to bow in reverence."
"Ah, truly," says Litroff: "so have we, I dare say: I have never asked."
"No doubt you have," says Mr. Wootton, kindly. "The virtue of its women is the great safeguard of a nation."
"One understands why England is losing her nice equipoise, then, now," murmurs Brandolin.
Mr. Wootton disregards him.
"But Madame Sabaroff was talked about, I think,—unjustly, no doubt?" he insists.
Mr. Wootton always insists.
"Ach!" says Litroff, apologetically, "Sabaroff was such a great brute. It was very natural——"