I rang the bell for Antoinette, to whom I gave the necessary instructions. Her next request would be that I should act the part of lady’s-maid. I must maintain my dignity with Carlotta. The lovely afternoon had attracted many people to the park, and the lawns were thronged. We found a couple of chairs at the edge of one of the cross-paths and watched the elegant assembly. Carlotta, vastly entertained, asked innumerable questions. How could I tell whether a lady was married or unmarried? Did they all wear stays? Why did every one look so happy? Did I think that old man was the young girl’s husband? What were they all talking about? Wouldn’t I take her for a drive in one of those beautiful carriages? Why hadn’t I a carriage? Then suddenly, as if inspired, after a few minutes’ silent reflection: “Seer Marcous, is this the marriage market?” “The what?” I gasped. “The marriage market. I read it in a book, yesterday. Miss Griggs gave it me to read aloud--Tack--Thack--” “Thackeray?” “Ye-es. They come here to sell the young girls to men who want wives.” She edged away from me, with a little movement of alarm. “That is not why you have brought me here--to sell me?” “How much do you think you would be worth?” I asked, sarcastically. She opened out her hands palms upward, throwing down her parasol, as she did so, upon her neighbour’s little Belgian griffon, who yelped. “Ch, lots,” she said in her frank way. “I am very beautiful.” I picked up the parasol, bowed apologetically to the owner of the stricken animal, and addressed Carlotta. “Listen, my good child. You are passably good-looking, but you are by no means very beautiful. If I tried to sell you here, you might possibly fetch half a crown--” “Two shillings and sixpence?” asked the literal Carlotta. “Yes. Just that. But as a matter of fact, no one would buy you. This is not the marriage market. There is no such thing as a marriage market. English mothers and fathers do not sell their daughters for money. Such a thing is monstrous and impossible.” “Then it was all lies I read in the book?” “All lies,” said I. I hope the genial shade of the great satirist has forgiven me. “Why do they put lies in books?” “To accentuate the Truth, so that it shall prevail,” I answered. This was too hard a nut for Carlotta to crack. She was silent for a moment. She reverted, ruefully, to the intelligible. “I thought I was beautiful,” she said. “Who told you so?” “Pasquale.” “Pasquale has no sense,” said I. “There are men to whom all women who are not seventy and toothless and rheumy at the eyes are beautiful. Pasquale has said the same to every woman he has met. He is a Lothario and a Don Juan and a Caligula and a Faublas and a Casanova.” “And he tells lies, too?” “Millions of them,” said I. “He contracts with their father Beelzebub for a hundred gross a day.” “Pasquale is very pretty and he makes me laugh and I like him,” said Carlotta. “I am very sorry to hear it,” said I.