Madame Leverdet—Let us come to serious topics while we are alone, my friend.
De Ryons—And apropos of them?
Madame Leverdet—Are you willing to be married off yet?
De Ryons [with a start of terror]—Pardon me, my dear lady! At what hour can I take the first train for Paris?
Madame Leverdet—Now listen to me, at least.
De Ryons—What! Here it is two years since I have called on you; I come to make you a little visit of a morning, in all good friendship, with the thermometer forty, centigrade; I am totally unsuspecting; all I ask is to have a little lively chat with a clever woman—and see how you receive me.
Madame Leverdet [continuing]—A simple, charming young girl—
De Ryons [interrupting her, and in the same tone]— —musical, speaks English, draws nicely, sings agreeably, a society woman, a domestic woman,—all at the choice of the applicant.
Madame Leverdet [laughing]—Yes, and pretty and graceful and rich; and, by-the-by, one who finds you a charming fellow.
De Ryons—She is quite right there. I shall make a charming husband—I shall; I know it. Only thirty-two years old; all my teeth, all my hair (no such very common detail, the way young men are nowadays); lively, sixty thousand livres income as a landed proprietor—oh, I am an excellent match: only unfortunately I am not a marrying man.