“Ja, I should say so; but them is the things, Becky, that money makes you forget all about.”

“Try to understand, can’t you, ma, that the Rosencrantzes are a great old French family.  You know for yourself how few of—­of our people got titles to their names.  Jacob Rosencrantz, ma, the marquis’s great-grandfather back in the days when the family had big money, got his title from the king, ma, for lending money when the—­”

“If all of his sons got, like this great-grandson of his asks, one million dollars with their wives, I should say he could afford to lend to the king.  To two kings!”

“Please, mamma, can’t you understand?  It don’t hurt how things are now—­it’s the way they used to be with those kinds of families that count, ma.  I was on their estate in France, ma, with Trixie and Felix.  She used to know him in Paris when she was singing there.  You ought to see, ma, an old, old place that you can ride on for a day and not come to the end, and the house so moldy and ramshackly that any American girl would be proud to marry into it.  Those are the things, ma, that our family needs and money can’t buy.”

“You mean, Becky, that five hundred thousand dollars can’t buy it!  It has got to be a million dollars yet!  A million dollars my child asks for just like it was five dollars!”

“I’m not asking that, ma, I’m not.  Five hundred thousand of it is mine by rights.  I’m only asking for half a million.”

“Gott in Himmel, child, much more as a million dollars I ’ain’t got left altogether.  With my five sons married and their shares drawn, I tell you, Becky, a million dollars to you now would leave me so low that—­”

“There you go.  That’s what you said that time Felix had to have the hundred thousand in a hurry, but I notice you got it overnight without even turning a finger.  For him you can do, but—­”

“For a black sheep I got to—­”

“It’s not all tease with the boys, let me tell you, ma, when they sing that song at you about a whole stocking full you’ve got that none of us know anything about.”

“Ja, you and your brothers can talk, but I know what’s what.  Don’t think, Becky, your brother Felix and his wife with their Monte Carlo all the time and a yacht they got to have yet, and their debts, ’ain’t eat a piece out of the fortune your papa built up for you children out of his own sweat.”

“Don’t go back to ancient history, ma.”

“Those cut-uppings is for billionaires, Becky; not for one old lady as ’ain’t got much more as a million left after her six dowries is paid.”

“Yes, I wish I had what you’ve got over and above that.”

“That young Rosencrantz is playing you high, Becky, because he sees how high your brother and his wife can fly.  Always when people get big like us, right away the world takes us for even bigger as we are.  He ’ain’t got no right to make such demands.  Five hundred thousand dollars is more as he ever saw in his life.  I tell you, Becky, if I could speak to that young man like you can in his own language, I would tell him what—­”