human
I haven't come on business, my--my lady.
gpt
Then what _have_ you come on? If it's to see the château you may as well go away. It's never shown. Those are positive orders. I make no exceptions. They must have told you so at the gate. But you Americans will dare anything. Mon Dieu, quel tas de barbares!
human
Quel tah de bah-bah!
gpt
I haven't come to see the château either, my lady--
human
You can call me madame,
gpt
I haven't come to see the château, either--madame. I've come to see _you_.
human
Oh, indeed! _Have_ you? I thought you'd learned better than that--over there. You used to come in ship-loads, but--
gpt
When I say I came to see you, madame, I mean, I came to--to tell you something.
human
Then, so long as it's not on business, I don't want to hear it. I suppose you're one of Walter Davenant's boys? I don't consider him any relation to me at all. It's too distant. If I acknowledged all the cousins forced on me from over there I might as well include Abraham and Adam. Are you the first or the second wife's son?
gpt
But that isn't what I came to talk about, madame--not about myself. I wanted to tell you of--of your nephew--Mr. Henry Guion.
human
Don't. I don't want to hear about him. Nor about my niece. They're strangers to me. I don't know them.
gpt
You'd like to know them now, madame--because they're in great trouble.
human
I dare say. It's what they were likely to come to. I told my niece so, the last time she allowed me the privilege of her conversation. But I told her, too, that in the day of her calamity she wasn't to look to me.
gpt
She isn't looking to you, madame. _I_ am. I'm looking to you because I imagine you can help her. There's no one else--
human
And has she sent you as her messenger? Why can't she come herself, if it's so bad as all that--or write? I thought she was married--to some Englishman.
gpt
They're not married yet, madame; and unless you help her I don't see how they're going to be--the way things stand.
human
Unless I help her! My good fellow, you don't know what you're saying. Do you know that she refused--refused violently--to help _me_?
gpt
Well, then, I'll tell you. It'll show you. You'll be able to go away again with a clear conscience, knowing you've done your best and failed. Sit down.
human
She refused the Duc de Berteuil. She made the statement with head erect and hands flung apart.
gpt
I suppose you have no idea of what that meant to me?
human
I'm afraid I haven't.
gpt
Of course you haven't. I don't know an American who _would_ have. You're so engrossed in your own small concerns. None of you have any conception of the things that really matter--the higher things. Well, then, let me tell you. The Duc de Berteuil is--or rather _was_--the greatest parti in France. He isn't any more, because they've married him to a rich girl from South America or one of those places--brown as a berry--with a bust-- She rounded her arms to give an idea of the bust.
human
Mais, n'importe. My niece refused him. That meant--I've never confessed it to any one before--I've been too proud--but I want you to understand--it meant my defeat--my final defeat. I hadn't the courage to begin again. C'était le désastre. C'était Sedan.
gpt
Oh, madame!
human
It would have been everything to me. It would have put me where I belong, in the place I've been trying to reach all these years. The life of an American woman in Europe, monsieur, can be very cruel. We've nothing to back us up, and everything to fight against in front. It's all push, and little headway. They don't want us. That's the plain English of it. They can't imagine why we leave our own country and come over here. They're so narrow. They're selfish, too. Everything they've got they want to keep for themselves. They marry us--the Lord only knows why!--and nine times out of ten all we get for it is the knowledge that we've been bamboozled out of our own _dots_. There was René de Lonchartres who married that goose Annie Armstrong. They ridiculed her when she came over here, and at the same time clapped him on the back for having got her. That's as true as you live. It's their way. They would have ridiculed me, too, if I hadn't been determined years ago to beat them on their own ground. I could have done it, too, if--
gpt
If it had been worth while,
human
You know nothing about it. I could have done it if my niece had put out just one little finger--when I'd got everything ready for her to do it. Yes, I'd got everything ready--and yet she refused him. She refused him after I'd seen them all--his mother, his sisters, his two uncles--one of them in waiting on the Duc d'Orléans--Philippe V., as we call him--all of them the purest old noblesse d'epée in Normandy.
gpt
I went begging to them, as you might say. I took all their snubs--and oh! so fine some of them were!--more delicate than the point of a needle! I took them because I could see just how I should pay them back. I needn't explain to you how that would be, because you couldn't understand. It would be out of the question for an American.
human
I don't think we _are_ good at returning snubs, madame. That's a fact.
gpt
You're not good at anything but making money; and you make that blatantly, as if you were the first people in the world to do it. Why, France and England could buy and sell you, and most of you don't know it. Mais, n'importe. I went begging to them, as I've told you. At first they wouldn't hear of her at any price--didn't want an American. That was bluff, to get a bigger _dot_. I had counted on it in advance. I knew well enough that they'd take a Hottentot if there was money enough. For the matter of that, Hottentot and American are much the same to them. But I made it bluff for bluff. Oh, I'm sharp. I manage all my own affairs in America--with advice. I've speculated a little in your markets quite successfully. I know how I stand to within a few thousand dollars of your money. I offered half a million of francs. They laughed at it. I knew they would, but it's as much as they'd get with a French girl. I went to a million--to a million and a half--to two millions. At two millions--that would be--let me see--five into twenty makes four--about four hundred thousand dollars of your money--they gave in. Yes, they gave in. I expected them to hold out for it, and they did. But at that figure they made all the concessions and gave in.
human
And did he give in?
gpt
Oh, I'd made sure of him beforehand. He and I understood each other perfectly. He would have let it go at a million and a half. He was next door to being in love with her besides. All he wanted was to be well established, poor boy! But I meant to go up to two millions, anyhow. I could afford it.
human
Four hundred thousand dollars, Davenant said, with an idea that he might convey a hint to her,
gpt
I could afford it, she went on,
human
You are in the Hamlet and Tecla!