I frightened him, and he bolted through the window on to the terrace." "He was greenish-pink, slightly tinged with yellow," said the Duke softly.
"Greenish-pink?
Oh, do stop your jesting, Jacques! Is this a time for idiocy ?" cried Germaine, in a tone of acute exasperation.
"It was the dim light which made your father see him in those colours.
In a bright light, I think he would have been an Alsatian blue," said the Duke suavely.
"You'll have to break yourself of this silly habit of trifling, my dear Duke, if ever you expect to be a member of the Academie Francaise," said the millionaire with some acrimony.

"I tell you I did see a burglar." "Yes, yes.

I admitted it frankly.

It was his colour I was talking about," said the Duke, with an ironical smile.
"Oh, stop your idiotic jokes! We're all sick to death of them!" said Germaine, with something of the fine fury which so often distinguished her father.
"There are times for all things," said the millionaire solemnly.

"And I must say that, with the fate of my collection and of the coronet trembling in the balance, this does not seem to me a season for idle jests." "I stand reproved," said the Duke; and he smiled at Sonia.
"My keys, Sonia--the keys of the Paris house," said the millionaire.
Sonia took her own keys from her pocket and went to the bureau.