point from which it had strayed.

'No, no, my life.'

'You were,' said Madame; 'I had my eye upon you all the time.'

'Bless the little winking twinkling eye; was it on me all the time!'
cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rapture. 'Oh, demmit!'

'And I say once more,' resumed Madame, 'that you ought not to waltz with
anybody but your own wife; and I will not bear it, Mantalini, if I take
poison first.'

'She will not take poison and have horrid pains, will she?' said
Mantalini; who, by the altered sound of his voice, seemed to have moved
his chair, and taken up his position nearer to his wife. 'She will not
take poison, because she had a demd fine husband who might have married
two countesses and a dowager--'

'Two countesses,' interposed Madame. 'You told me one before!'

'Two!' cried Mantalini. 'Two demd fine women, real countesses and
splendid fortunes, demmit.'

'And why didn't you?' asked Madame, playfully.

'Why didn't I!' replied her husband. 'Had I not seen, at a morning
concert, the demdest little fascinator in all the world, and while that
little fascinator is my wife, may not all the countesses and dowagers in
England be--'