"Stop, stop, Zoe, I beg you," said Truyn, provoked, "you make me nervous! You always forget how your French way of arranging marriages goes against the grain with us and our old-fashioned Austrian ideas. You say I have a rich husband for your daughter in just the same tone in which you say I have a purchaser for your house! And I seriously entreat you to consider that a jewel like my dear comrade yonder, may be bestowed, upon one deemed worthy of such a possession, but can never be sold." "Ah, here is my sandwich!" exclaimed the baroness, paying no attention to his words in her satisfaction over the tea-tray. Whilst Gabrielle was occupied with making tea the visitor applied herself to the refreshments, whispering meanwhile confidentially and mysteriously to Truyn. "I thought that your new domestic relations might make you desirous to have Gabrielle mar ...." An angry flash in Truyn's blue eyes, usually so kindly, warned her that she was on the wrong track; she lost countenance and consequently proceeded rather too precipitately in her investigations as to 'how the land lay.' "At least my proposition is worth being taken into serious consideration," she said hastily. "Count Capriani commissioned me to ask you whether there was any prospect of his obtaining Gabrielle's hand for his only--remember, his only son." "Count Capriani, I do not know who he is," Truyn said coldly. "Well then, Conte Capriani," Zoe explained impatiently. "Ah, indeed, Conte Capriani," Truyn said significantly,--"the railroad Capriani!" "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. "Zoe, 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."