"You showed much respect to her a moment ago, when you suggested that she was ready to rush into my arms." "I! I never said such a thing. I said that any woman--" "Including Madame Mayer, of course," interrupted Giovanni again. "Can you not let me speak?" roared the Prince. Giovanni shrugged his shoulders a little, poured out a glass of wine, and helped himself to cheese, but said nothing. Seeing that his son said nothing, old Saracinesca was silent too; he was so angry that he had lost the thread of his ideas. Perhaps Giovanni regretted the quarrelsome tone he had taken, for he presently spoke to his father in a more conciliatory tone. "Let us be just," he said. "I will listen to you, and I shall be glad if you will listen to me. In the first place, when I think of marriage I represent something to myself by the term--" "I hope so," growled the old man. "I look upon marriage as an important step in a man's life. I am not so old as to make my marriage an immediate necessity, nor so young as to be able wholly to disregard it. I do not desire to be hurried; for when I make up my mind, I intend to make a choice which, if it does not ensure happiness, will at least ensure peace. I do not wish to marry Madame Mayer. She is young, handsome, rich--" "Very," ejaculated the Prince. "Very. I also am young and rich, if not handsome." "Certainly not handsome," said his father, who was nursing his wrath, and meanwhile spoke calmly. "You are the image of me." "I am proud of the likeness," said Giovanni, gravely. "But to return to Madame Mayer. She is a widow--" "Is that her fault?" inquired his father irrelevantly, his anger rising again. "I trust not," said Giovanni, with a smile. "I trust she did not murder old Mayer. Nevertheless she is a widow. That is a strong objection. Have any of my ancestors married widows?" "You show your ignorance at every turn," said the old Prince, with a scornful laugh. "Leone Saracinesca married the widow of the Elector of Limburger-Stinkenstein in 1581." "It is probably the German blood in our veins which gives you your taste for argument," remarked Giovanni. "Because three hundred years ago an ancestor married a widow, I am to marry one now. Wait--do not be angry--there are other reasons why I do not care for Madame Mayer. She is too gay for me--too fond of the world." The Prince burst into aloud ironical laugh. His white hair and beard bristled about his dark face, and he showed all his teeth, strong and white still. "That is magnificent!" he cried; "it is superb, splendid, a piece of unpurchasable humour! Giovanni Saracinesca has found a woman who is too gay for him! Heaven be praised! We know his taste at last. We will give him a nun, a miracle of all the virtues, a little girl out of a convent, vowed to a life of sacrifice and self-renunciation. That will please him--he will be a model happy husband."