Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/82

. Duchess, if you please. Her Highness is travelling incognito.

. Pardon. Her Highness will always be Her Highness to me.

. And to everybody else. It makes no matter.

. I might say in my defense that I approached Your Highness only at the suggestion of the Comte de Tournerelles, as his private secretary. The Comte is somewhat near-sighted. He supposed

. Quite naturally. In this cosmopolis where everybody pretends to be what they are not, it is not surprising that a princess should be taken for a cocotte where there are so many cocottes who are taken for princesses.

. Did you say the Comte de Tournerelles? Not that Comte who enjoys the reputation for spending money? Why, they call him— I beg your pardon; I forgot that you were his secretary.

. Not at all; it is no secret. In Paris they dub him the "Little Chocolateer," as the origin of his fortune was in chocolate. His grandfather arrived in Paris without a sou to his name, and established a small factory.

. Needless to add that he came barefoot; it is the legend of all great fortunes.

. However, after living in Paris twenty years conducting a modest factory, he branched out suddenly into other lines, bought land, and commenced to build houses.

. All of them dispensing chocolate?

. Or with it, as the case might be. To-day his grandson is a multimillionaire, and a Comte. He has attracted more attention in Paris, such as it is, over a longer period of years, than any other person still living, except Sarah Bernhardt and Otero. He sets the fashions.