I thought
French girls--well, then, _half_ French girls--usually let their people
arrange their marriages."
"Perhaps I'm not usual. I _hope_ Monsieur Charretier isn't."
"Is he such a monster?"
"He is fat, especially in all the places he oughtn't to be fat. And old.
But worse than his _embonpoint_ and his nose, he made his money in--you
could never guess."
"I see by your face, my poor child: it was Liver Pills."
"Something far more dreadful."
"Are there lower depths?"
"There are--Corn Plasters."
"Oh, my dear, you are _quite_ right! You couldn't marry him."
"Thank you so much! Then, I can't go back to my cousins. They--they
take Monsieur Charretier seriously. I think they even take his
plasters--gratuitously."
"Is he so very rich?"
"But disgustingly rich. He has an awful, bulbous new chateau in the
country, with dozens of incredibly high-powered motor-cars; and in the
most expensive part of Paris a huge apartment wriggling from floor to
ceiling with _Nouveau Art_. The girl who marries him will have to be
smeared with diamonds, and know the most appalling people.
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