"She's a selfish cat and thinks of nobody but
herself. She won't even let the men come near us girls if she can help
it, though you and I both know perfectly well, Miss Collis, that she
hinted about the most wonderful chances of great marriages, nothing
lower than an earl at meanest. Not that you and I need look for
husbands. But that isn't the point; for anyhow, she has no business to
snap them out of our mouths. Now, she's jealous if Dom Ferdinand or the
Marquis de Casablanca so much as looks at one of us. And she's given us
the worst rooms, so she can take in other poor deluded creatures and get
more money out of them. And there isn't enough to eat. And all the eggs
and fish have had a past. And Secundina says there are black beetles as
large as chestnuts in the kitchen. Still----"
"Still," echoed Miss Collis, "Monseigneur's awfully interesting, and
it's fun being in the same house with him; though I'm afraid he's
selfish too, or he wouldn't calmly keep on his front room, when he can't
help knowing we're stuffed into back ones without any view. Of course he
_is_ a royalty, so perhaps he has his dignity to think of. But I know
an American man wouldn't do such a thing, not even if he were a
President."
"The Marquis is nice, too," said Mrs. Collis. "Lord Dauntrey tells me
his family's one of the oldest in the 'Almanach de Gotha,' whatever
_that_ is. And Monseigneur and he are both great friends of the
Dauntreys."
"Only of Lord Dauntrey," Dodo corrected her.
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