"Well?"
"As I am personally responsible to the Count for all moneys due to him, may I ask your Excellency to promise me that nothing shall be removed from this apartment until my arrears of rent have been paid?"
"I promise that you shall receive what is due from me in two days. Is not that enough?"
The pepper-and-salt tweeds bowed meekly before Roma's flashing eyes.
"Good-morning, sir."
The man was hardly out of the house when a woman was shown in. It was Madame Sella, the fashionable modiste.
"So unlucky, my dear! I'm driven to my wits' end for money. The people I deal with in Paris are perfect demons, and are threatening all sorts of pains and penalties if I don't send them a great sum straight away. Of course if I could get my own money in, it wouldn't matter. But the dear ladies of society are so slow, and naturally I don't like to go to their gentlemen, although really I've waited so long for their debts that if...."
"Can you wait one day longer for mine?"
"Donna Roma! And we've always been such friends, too!"