"Or a viscountess?" said her father.
"How could that be?" she asked quickly.
"If you accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has enough merit and
influence to obtain permission from the king to bear my titles and
arms."
"Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, _he_ will not make any
difficulty," said Modeste, scornfully.
Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose meaning could only be
guessed by Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay.
"When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise themselves,"
remarked Latournelle, "and women set them the example. I've heard it
said ever since I came into the world that 'Monsieur this or
Mademoiselle that has made a good marriage,'--meaning that the other
side had made a bad one."
"Marriage," said Butscha, "is like a lawsuit; there's always one side
discontented. If one dupes the other, certainly half the husbands in
the world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half."
"From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?" inquired Modeste.
"To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of the enemy," answered
the clerk.
"What did I tell you, my darling?" said Charles Mignon, alluding to
their conversation on the seashore.
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